


The Tigress or the Tabby

by BlackMajjicDuchess



Series: Shisui's Story [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Characters Gone Rogue, Commitment, Crack, Crack Relationships, Dark Past, Developing Relationship, Discovery, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Fear, Helpless Author, Hot Sex, I can't believe I just did this, LOVE HIM, Lemon, Light BDSM, Loneliness, Loss of Virginity, Love, Murder, Outdoor Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn With Plot, Romance, Sequel, Sex, Sexual Content, Shameless Smut, Shower Sex, Slave to my writing, Smut, Snark, Strong Female Characters, Suicidal Thoughts, Temper Tantrums, The most sexual content I've ever written into a fic, There's plot, These two are UNREAL., Trust Issues, Vulnerability, Why I love Shisui, but who cares?, fuck it, so much sex, why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-01-19 22:24:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 42,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1486309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackMajjicDuchess/pseuds/BlackMajjicDuchess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SEQUEL TO BLIND MAN'S GAMBIT</p><p>Tenten can't seem to trust men. And what's with this guy that seems to obsess about her for no reason?</p><p>Shisui can't understand why he needs her so badly... just that he does. </p><p>And there's something in the shadows of her eyes that suggests that there are secrets she'd rather not share. </p><p>(How to take the most cracked out pairing and make them perfect for each other). Shisui deserves to be happy and Tenten deserves to be important. I'll be surprised if you don't fall for this pairing like I did when I wrote them... for these two characters promptly yanked any idea of a plot out of my hands, flipped me the bird, and shut the bedroom door. O_O I guess that's what happens when you take a snarky, obsessive, unloved and cheeky Uchiha and dangle a battle-bred kunoichi who would tear his balls off in front of his face. </p><p>Oh well. Enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tabby Became a Tiger

**Author's Note:**

> Well. Hello there, dear reader! If you know anything about me, you know that I have a thing against lemons. It bothers me that lemons make or break a story.
> 
> That's why it is with great pride and astonishment that I bring you this story. As I wrote Shisui--as he developed his own personality and dictated to me his whims--he promptly jerked any ideas that *I* had about his fate right out of my hands. He simply needed to find, win, and woo his lady love, author be damned. 
> 
> Sex happened in this story far earlier than I anticipated, and then Shisui and Tenten gave me a death glare and wondered what I was still doing here. *Raises hands in surrender* Fine. FINE! 
> 
> I can't be held responsible for what they did when they kicked me out of this story. You'll just have to ask them. I am still experiencing shock and awe that this piece of work ever happened. 
> 
> I guess you can thank Ishimaru_Asuka as well... she told me to abandon the ending I had planned and write a sequel instead, and it became this monstrosity. :-D
> 
> Without further ado... enjoy my first and only smutfic.

**Tabby has Turned into a Tiger**

by Mark Nyamekye Boadi

* * *

 

Tabby has turned into a tiger

He will no longer remain docile  
For there is no use in being sober  
When the atmosphere is hostile  
  
All is not well  
Tabby has a story to tell  
There are fumes of hate in the air  
He could not hide his anger  
And has turned into a tiger  
  
Tabby has moved into the forest  
Because he has been bitten  
By animals he considered dearest  
But he is no longer a kitten  
  
They have created a wound so deep  
It caused Tabby to weep  
Making him move into the jungle  
Because his feelings would no longer be hidden  
He will consider the domestic land forbidden  
  
The Tabby they knew  
Has become wild  
Hiding steadily amongst the yew  
Sending a strong message to every parent and child  
  
Tabby has turned into a tiger  
He wishes to remain in the jungle forever  
No longer at ease  
No longer taking in fire  
No longer doing what they require  
  
Tabby has turned into a tiger  
He is no longer open  
For he cannot hide his anger   
And has become outspoken  
  
Tabby has turned into a tiger  
He has now changed  
Because he was estranged  
  
Tabby has turned into a tiger  
Do not be amazed at his actions  
For treatments elicit reactions  
  
Tabby has turned into a tiger  
He will no longer hide his anger  
And will remain in the jungle forever. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This little poem I found sets the tone. Please note that I DID NOT write it. 
> 
> Chapter one will be posted when I feel as if everyone who is finishing up Blind Man's Gambit finishes. Thanks for reading!


	2. In Case You Didn't Read Blind Man's Gambit--A Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I assume that no matter how many times I plaster "THIS IS A SEQUEL, PLEASE READ THE OTHER STORY," that there are some of you that won't. After all... this one is tagged with so many sexy tags, and the other... well, isn't.
> 
> Therefore I provided this handy summary. Shame on you for skipping the first story. It's really important to Shisui that you know how his whole story goes. 
> 
> But nonetheless, it's your choice. Here you go.

In Blind Man’s Gambit, Shisui and his best friend Itachi devoted their whole lives to promoting peace in the Village Hidden in the Leaves. So dedicated to their cause were they that Itachi was willing to end the lives of his entire family, minus his little brother Sasuke, of course, and Shisui was willing to give up his sight to make Itachi’s job a little easier. After, he used his special sealing jutsu to create a living, autonomous clone, which he immediately murdered in the currents of the Naka River to stage a suicide.

Blind and alone, Shisui hid his presence in the small village of Mienai, a tiny town south of Konoha near the meeting of the Mitake and Naka Rivers. Itachi carried on, writing a story that, by now, most are familiar with, until his eventual death at the hands of a vengeful Sasuke. Shisui, on the other hand, spent his time trying to decode a scroll that he and Itachi had found on a mission and hidden, a mission that had nearly cost Shisui his life. Though Itachi feared the scroll was actually blank, blind Shisui discovered that it had been written in a clear wax meant only for the sightless. He decoded the scroll, uncovering an ancient, unknown Jutsu that would bring an Uchiha back to life at the cost of a living, willing sacrifice, thus ending the Uchiha Curse of Hatred.

With Itachi forefront in his mind, Shisui made his way to the battlefield, where the Five Great Nations faced Madara Uchiha, who was back for a second time to wreak his vengeance upon the Shinobi World. On his way there, however, he came across a wounded kunoichi, and for the first time was faced with a decision he could not easily make.

For Itachi was already dead, and Shisui was no longer a part of the Shinobi World. Why should Shisui give up his life to save the friend that had apparently forgotten him, in order to save the world that had killed them both? He struggled to choose between the chance at a life of his own, exploring life’s greatest mystery—love—or saving the friend that had sacrificed his happiness, and later his life, to save the Village and his little brother. Selfishness, or selflessness? Happiness, or honor? Shisui, or Itachi?

In the end, Shisui did use the rebirth jutsu, and Itachi was revived. However, Itachi’s mastery of abilities, old and new, led him to use Shisui’s Life Anchor jutsu, which had allowed Shisui to make permanent clones. He pushed Shisui’s soul into the clone, thus keeping them both alive to fight the war against Madara.

When the two Shinobi bearing Shisui’s resemblance appeared on the battlefield, the tides changed for the better for the Five Great Nations. Sasuke, who now used Itachi’s old eyes, still held his own eyes in reserve. Upon learning the identities of the newcomers, he handed over his eyes. Itachi and Shisui shared Sasuke’s eyes, and a grand battle between the three Uchiha and Madara took place.

Ultimately, the Five Great Nations were triumphant with a surprising ‘twist’ of events. With his lifetime purpose fulfilled, Shisui now has the chance at a more selfish existence, one with the small, spirited woman with deadly accuracy and far too much pain lurking behind her eyes. Her life is one of secrets and abandonment, and he is drawn to her in a way he doesn’t understand, yet recognizes.

He wants her. And he wants to smother that hidden pain more than he ever wanted to save the Village.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK. On to this wild ride. *wink*


	3. Counting Birds

**Tenten**

* * *

 

 _One, two, three, four, five, six_ , I counted. _Six birds. There are six birds in the sky._ The counting depressed me, a fact that I knew before I counted them and before the depression hit. Counting birds always reminded me of Neji. Beautiful, deadly, _bastard_ Neji. I uncurled my hands from behind my head and let them fall at my sides, hanging down below the tree branches as I watched the six birds whirl and wheel across the too-blue sky.

Life was really starting to suck. I had carved out a place in the world, making myself useful and learning how to be the best damned weapons master in all the Five Great Nations. People were actually just starting to acknowledge my skills, and yet…

Neji was gone. And I didn’t even want to _think_ about Shisui.

I felt the familiar burn in my nose and eyes. I will _not_ cry! Crying pissed me off. Why was it that when a woman felt any emotion at all, it translated into tears? Too angry? Cry. Too sad? Cry. Too happy? Cry. Cry, cry, _cry_! The notion was just ridiculous. Furious with myself, I scrubbed the tears away and forced myself to confront the past.

How did I feel about Neji? _How indeed._

Once upon a time, I had envied him. Before I knew him, and his family. He had had natural, predatory talent and grace, like a tiger. His serene, almost effeminate beauty only belied his strength and ferocity. Neji was a quietly seething dancer of death. Neither Lee nor I could ever land a hit on him. He dodged every attack, and the type of damage he inflicted was more dangerous than one could ever imagine. If he hit you with the intent to kill, your internal body shut down without any possibility of reparation. Your chakra network betrayed you and imploded, and with it went your life.

He frightened me, and he thrilled me, and I wanted to beat him so badly that I could taste it. It was only a matter of time, though, when I knew I had to give that up. My weapons could never pierce Neji’s Rotation, just like all the charm in the world could never pierce the ice around his heart.

I got to know Neji during our time as teammates. He didn’t want to talk about his family, just like I had never wanted to talk about mine. It came out, though, in one way or another. The angry outbursts were a tip off. I had them, too. The way he was so hard on Lee, trying to make him give up and accept that he was just never going to be good enough. I heard another voice in his like an echo and knew, just knew, that he had often been told the same thing. Someone was beating Neji, even if it wasn’t me, but the way that they were beating him was hurting him emotionally. Though he never bore a scratch on his person, Neji was bleeding internally from a wound that someone he trusted had put there.

I watched him fight Naruto, once, and in doing so he had removed his headband. There was a bright green brand there, faintly glowing like a decoration on his skull. But Neji’s face was twisted with hate, and that delicate tattoo was the reason. We all heard him that day as he proclaimed the monstrosity of the Hyuuga Clan, and how Neji and his father before him had been little more than slaves of their own family. I was horrified. It made my past seem so much more benign.

I had begun to pity him, then, and I felt drawn to him like a moth to the flame. It was because he was so unreachable that I was desperate to reach him. I didn’t care if he wanted me to or if it was healthy to pursue it. All I knew was that Neji was hurting, and I wanted to be the one to show him a more beautiful world. Maybe, in doing so, I could show myself one, too.

That was when I began to honestly pursue a relationship with Neji. I was ignoring all kinds of Shinobi protocol, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t supposed to show emotion; surely that included the strongest one of all—love. I wasn’t supposed to be in a relationship with a teammate; doing so meant that I might favor him in a real battle, choosing his life over that of the others in my squad. I wasn’t fit to wed a Hyuuga; their Clan was now the most noble of all of Konoha, and I was nothing more than a nameless orphan. I didn’t have money, or prestige, or anything at all to offer him. I knew all that, and I didn’t care. Neji was alone, and I was alone, and I wanted us both to be happy, somehow. I didn’t even know if being with him would do that, but somehow I did my best to convince myself that it would.

Subtlety worked with Neji, except when it didn’t. Trying to hint that I was trying to get closer to him was getting me nowhere. I tried to spend more time with him, asked him to lunch to discuss training methods, or offered to walk with him home. He took it as trying to ask for his protection, wanting to get stronger, and wanting to discuss training as we walked the same direction. I wasn’t getting anywhere, but I didn’t know what to do. I found myself suddenly shy, unwilling to make the first move. Once I did, there would be no going back. What if he wanted nothing to do with me? I tried my hardest to let him know I was interested. That way, if he caved, we’d both be all in. It never worked.

It wasn’t until war broke out that we really made any headway. The first night that we camped on the battlefield, the three of us—Lee, Neji, and I—huddled close to our campfire. We’d been in plenty of battles before, and plenty of fights that might cost us our own lives. None of it had prepared us for the horrors of war. The stink was only just beginning, and even as we sat there that evening, eyes locked on the flames, it grew worse. The smell of dead bodies will haunt me forever. We hadn’t lost any friends yet, that day, but so many had died, and the body count had not even reached its halfway mark.

We stared at those flames, feeling the most we had ever felt connected in our lifetimes, and then without needing to say anything, we sought each other’s hands. Both of Lee’s hands curled protectively around my right hand, and his gaze on the fire intensified. I knew what he was thinking; Lee always wore his heart on his sleeve. He was thinking that he would do anything to protect me, even if it cost him his life, because as his teammate, I had become a part of his family. Lee had never had much of a family either. The three of us were all family rejects. His parents had disowned him when they learned he could not perform ninjutsu or genjutsu, and Guy had taken him in. Lee was the child that wasn’t wanted, and anyone that acknowledged him became family. Even Neji.

Neji’s right hand slid over my fingers. I expected him to squeeze just as hard as Lee had, determined that we would live out the war, but I saw something else in him instead. It was almost like he had surprised himself, reaching for someone else in what might be our final hours. Neji had always told himself that he didn’t need anyone. When he found my fingers, he stroked my hand. His hand was warm, and softer than I could have expected. Then, he intertwined our fingers, and without looking at me, he smiled, just a little.

I squeezed his hand, and Lee’s, and I smiled, too. Whatever happened, the three of us were going to get through this together. My sensei was a total weirdo, but he cared about us, and he had made us strong in his own way. We were a haphazard set of rejects, a squad of the unwanted, but the three of us were one. Somehow, we would survive. 

The next day brought on another set of horrors worse than the last. We’d witnessed violent, bloody deaths. My face had been sprayed by the blood of a Shinobi I didn’t recognize when he was slashed in half. His guts spilled out onto the stone, blood and bile mixing with the dust. I’d vomited. I’m not even ashamed. The smell had been awful, the sight too gruesome to witness, and it had been so _close_. It was at that moment that Neji appeared, dispatching the killer with his strange, ethereal taijutsu. His face had been a mask of determination. When we were relatively alone again, the killer dead, he turned and helped me up. “You all right, Tenten?” he asked me softly, holding my shoulders. I nodded. “That’s good,” he said with a smile, and then he was off again.

And that was the night that he loved me.

I was hiding in the dark of the tree branches, like I sometimes did. For some reason, I always felt that it was safer off the ground, and I preferred to perch. And I always, always, always preferred to be alone. There were too many demons in my past, and if I faced them around other people, I found it hard to hide them. “What’s wrong?” they’d ask. “You OK, Tenten?” I didn’t want to answer their questions, and they didn’t want to hear my answers. If I spent enough time away from them, I had enough energy to smile and pretend that everything was just fine.

But Neji knew, and if he needed to, he always found me. Those eyes of his saw everything. That night, I learned that they saw my pain, too. “Tenten,” he said softly when he was near.

I nearly jumped out of my skin; I hadn’t heard him approach. “Neji?” I asked dumbly. Who else would it be?

“Would you come down?” he asked. No ‘please.’ Neji would never beg. He always had a subtle way of trying to be in command or being disrespectful. That was how he convinced himself that he was just fine, too.

I dropped from the tree and landed in front of him. I couldn’t see his face; just his outline. It was too dark. He hesitated, and so did I. I didn’t understand what was going on, until it slowly began to dawn on me. He had grabbed my hand. He had saved me. He’d saved me dozens of times before, but this time he had made sure I was okay, too. Something between us was different. My heart’s rhythm gradually increased, until it was pounding in my ears. “Neji?” I prompted, my voice trembling.

He crashed into me, though it didn’t hurt. The lines of his body pressed perfectly into the lines of mine, soft, but firm and unyielding. My back pressed into the tree behind me as his lips—so deliciously soft—meshed into mine. My head buzzed with questions—why now? Why here? Just… why? I didn’t dare voice them, though. Something magical was at work here, because coldhearted, emotionless, unbreachable Neji was kissing me, and there wasn’t anything cold or emotionless about it.

I gave over. Something about being so close to death made one do reckless, stupid things. I opened my heart, my soul, and my body to him that night. I told myself that I loved him, and that there would be no one else. In convincing myself of that, I had the most magnificent night with him, pretending that it was a perfect world, that no one was dying, the war was over, and we were going to live happily ever after.

No one knew what we had done. No one suspected. The next day, I put on my fake smile, and Neji’s face blanked back to its unreadable wall. We were teammates, first and foremost, and we had a war to win. I suppressed the questions; there would be time enough for those later. We could figure it out then. I was at peace with that conclusion.

A few days later, he was dead.

I was devastated, and I made a fatal mistake. I tore off into the wilderness, hunting anything and everything that moved. I slaughtered everyone that stood in my way, friend and foe, assuming that all that would try to stop me were white Zetsu. Though at the time it didn’t matter if I was right, I was glad to find out that they all were enemies.

It was during this flight, though, that I twisted my ankle. I tripped as I fought the last one, and my ankle twisted awkwardly. There was a sickening _pop_ and _crunch_ and a lot of pain. I managed to keep calm long enough to finish off the Zetsu clone, but after that I knew I was dead. I stared at my ankle and let the tears flow. Neji was dead, and soon I would be, too, and no one would miss either of us. I didn’t even bother to stop the bleeding. I had seen enough, done enough, and suffered enough. I was ready to die. It was a war, after all. Perhaps someone could remember enough of me to say that I had died well.

And that was when I met Shisui.


	4. Peace for Warriors

**Shisui**

* * *

 

“Has anyone seen Tenten?” I asked as I approached Naruto and company.

“Jeez, are you still looking for her?” Sasuke asked. “Maybe you should just give up. She obviously doesn’t want anything to do with you.”

“Sasuke!” Sakura chastised. “Don’t say things like that!”

Naruto was giggling, hiding his mouth behind his hand. “Yeah, Sasuke. Don’t say things like that!” he copied. He was clearly enjoying having someone else to divert Sakura’s attitude.

“Hmph,” was Sasuke’s reply. “It’s not my fault if he’s chasing a lost cause.”

Sakura punched his shoulder. “Tenten is not a lost cause!” she snapped. She turned back to me, her eyes instantly softened. “We haven’t seen her, Shisui. Sorry. Did you try asking her team?”

I shrugged. Did I try asking her team? Yeah, I had. But Lee and Guy were constantly embroiled in some sort of suicidal training regimen. They were either too busy or simply hadn’t seen her. “Yeah,” was all I said. _Thanks for nothing, guys._ “I’ll keep looking. Thanks.”

I was trying not to be irritated. Not like I’d saved her life or anything, but here we were, the war was over, and she didn’t even have time to stop by for a 'howdy do'? I told myself for the hundredth time that she was avoiding me. That should have been enough to make me go home and forget about it. I almost did, all hundred times. Then I remembered her words to me: _“Liar. I know what a face looks like when it’s lying. I know what a face looks like when the person wearing it has decided to die.”_ Her words were haunting me. They dogged my every step. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to know... And I wanted her to never feel like that again.

I was obsessing, I knew. That was never a good start. But I couldn’t help it. Everything about her intrigued me. Now that I could see, I was mesmerized by her simple beauty. She had a lovely face, prettified with a gentle smile and enhanced by the promise of dark secrets. I loved the way she smelled, like a warrior, all sweat and blood without a hint of perfume. I loved it when she was overcome with tense fury and wanted to rip me apart, and I loved it when she relented instead. I remembered the feeling of her willing lips when I stole our first kiss, and I was amused at the way she’d scrambled away from me after. I was addicted, and like most addictions, it didn't make any sense to me. 

She was a wily tigress, and I was the hunter. And until I had captured her and tamed her for myself, my journey would never be over.

That gave me an idea. How does one capture a tigress? He tracks. Where could I count on her always going? Well, every Shinobi was part of a roster kept on file in Hokage tower. Perhaps I could start there.

I knocked on the door and was admitted. “Good morning, Lady Tsunade,” I said to her with a polite bow. “I was wondering—“

“I don’t know where she is, Shisui,” she interrupted, her eyes never leaving whatever she was working on upon the desk. “And you’re better off forgetting about it.”

I blinked. It was rather embarrassing that everyone apparently knew my business, particularly when it came to this girl. I couldn’t help myself, though. “Why?”

Her glance flickered in my direction for only an instant. “You don’t know much about women, do you?” she accused.

I twisted my mouth with displeasure. I wanted to open my mouth and claim that ‘of course I do,’ and make her feel like a jerk for asking that. But, if I did that, it would be a lie. Besides, they said that the Hokage was over fifty years old. And _she_ was a woman. Perhaps she could give me some advice. “No,” I admitted with defeat.

She sighed. Then her lips twitched into a smile, and she laughed quietly. “Well, at least you’re honest.” She shook her head, amused, fixed me with a stare. “Tenten’s feisty.”

I smiled, then. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“You backed her into a corner with your latest stunt, so she’s acting like a beast. She skulked back to her den, wherever that may be, to sort out what happened and how she feels about it. If you’re trying to find her, you won’t. She has had years of practice running and hiding. When she’s ready, she’ll find you, and not before. Let her be, and let her go, and if she likes you, she’ll come back.”

I frowned. I didn’t like the sound of that 'years of practice' thing. I opened my mouth to ask about it, but couldn't bring myself to do it. The Hokage quirked an eyebrow and waited. “I don’t… I don’t like the thought of her dealing with it alone.”

Her gaze hardened. “Get used to it, Shisui. She has been alone her whole life.”

My mood darkened. I liked this less and less. “Okay, I get it,” I grumbled, and I made my exit without the dismissal. I probably shut the door a little harder than I intended.

* * *

 

I needed to distract myself, so I found Itachi. He was sitting at our secret but not-so-secret meeting spot, on a ledge above the Naka. This is where he came to be alone, but only if he was okay with me seeking him out. He was meditating, his hands upon his knees, back straight, eyes closed. He did that a lot lately. His hair was shaggy, flaring around his ears like a mane. He was growing it out, trying to be as close to his former self as he could be, and as different from me as he could manage to detract from the fact that we looked identical.

“Shisui,” he greeted. He didn’t open his eye or move otherwise.

I sighed and sat next to him, copying his position. “Itachi,” I greeted back.

“Still no word from the girl, then?” he asked knowingly, a trickle of amusement lacing his voice.

“No,” I grumped back.

We sat there in silence for several minutes, then Itachi took a deep breath and stood. “Peacetime is too boring, isn’t it?” He reached down to help me up.

I stared at it, then took his offer, and stood. I was confused. “I don’t know what you mean.” We had given up everything to achieve peace. This was supposed to be the reward time.

He smiled sagely, his one eye locking onto my matching one. Our eyes were a pair, and together we would always be stronger than we were alone. “You and I were bred and reared in a world ravaged by war. Sometimes I almost wish I really had died. My body suffers from inaction. I have an extraordinarily difficult time just sitting still.”

And yet he was meditating constantly. I frowned. I agreed, but I failed to see his point. Itachi was like that, though. He never said what he meant outright. You had to entertain his lectures, first. “Yeah, I suppose. I mean, I train just like the rest of us, do, but I don’t know why anymore.”

He nodded once. “As do I. Before, we occupied our minds and bodies with the promise of war and the goal of peace. The war is over, and peace prevails.” He paused for effect. “What now, are we to do with ourselves? We are the grizzled veterans of a prior time. This notion of peace is hard to cope with. Around us, the people move on and find things to do—peacetime things—to occupy their time. They plant gardens, open shops, marry and start families, take up painting, or breed prized animals. Who are we now, Shisui?” 

Was that a rhetorical question? I saw where he was going with this now. The idea was troubling me, too. There wasn’t anything to do. The two of us were bored. We weren’t sure what to do with ourselves. Who were we? Because, before, we were Itachi and Shisui, a motley team fighting from the shadows to save the Leaf Village. And now, we were just Itachi and Shisui.

Who was I? Did I even know my own personality? Was I funny? Did I hate? Did I love? Was I passionate and extraordinary, or dull and ordinary? Who was Shisui Uchiha, or was he even worth mentioning at all? “I… don’t know,” I admitted, perturbed.

“Exactly,” Itachi confirmed. “And because of that, you’re searching for the one person you think might help you answer that question. Try to deny it if you will, but she made you feel something, and now you’re obsessed with finding out who you are as a result.”

I wouldn’t deny it. I knew that already, though it did smart to hear it from the lips of someone else. I took a deep breath, chewing on his words.

“You will find her, Shisui,” he told me. “I know you. You’re like a dog with a bone when you set your mind to something. You’re not going to let this go until you have an answer that is satisfying. Maybe she’s everything,” he said, holding one hand out, palm up. “Maybe she’s nothing.” He held the other hand out the same way. “But until you know that, _you_ are nothing.”

His words stung. He was saying everything I already felt. I was worthless. My abilities had been glorious, my return triumphant. But now I was just another citizen on just another day, and every day was more boring than the last. As the memories of the war began to dull and lose their edges, I was losing my grip on my own life. It is the working man who is the happy man. The idle man is a miserable man. I was a toothless tiger, pacing in a cage, suffering from the memories of claws and teeth and tearing out the throats of young deer. “And what about you?” I asked.

His eye flashed with anger and shock. I had struck a nerve, and I was sorry for it.  He ground his teeth, lips trembling from trying to restrain his emotions. My concern piqued; Itachi had never had any trouble with hiding his emotions before. Had taking over my body changed that? I had always been worse at hiding my feelings than he had been. When he had regained his control, he spoke. “Why, Shisui, I’m the same as I have always been. Perfect.”

I was stunned by the flat bitterness in his voice, and scared, too. Something was very wrong with Itachi, and whatever it was was not okay by me. I had been willing to give my life to bring him back, and already I feared he was losing it. The heartfelt speech he had just given me rang more true to him than it did to me, I wagered.

Not good enough. I gripped his face in my hands and glared at him. “Look here, Itachi,” I growled. “Your body is the real one. If you die, I die, and maybe I’m being a little melodramatic, but if anything happens to you, I’m going to get a little upset. I died for you. Don’t you ever forget that, Hero.”

He flinched as if struck, and the glassy façade shattered. “You’re right, Shisui. I apologize.”

I patted his face with my hands and released him. “We’ll find something to do. Both of us. I’ve apparently got a girl to chase. Maybe you should find one, too?” I immediately regretted the words as they left my mouth. _Dammit_ , Shisui!

His face contorted into one of pain, and I knew he was remembering Ayumu, the pretty blonde Uchiha he had trysted with when we were teenagers. Maybe a girlfriend wasn’t the best solution for my friend.

“I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. But… isn’t there anything else you always dreamed of doing, once we had achieved our goal?” My heart went out to him. Poor Itachi had never truly thought about his own future. Every scenario he had envisioned ended with him dying.

He shook his head. “Nothing. Didn’t you know?”

Know what? “Um… no?”

“I was sick, when I was alive,” he told me. 

I reeled, nearly falling over from surprise. As if he hadn’t had enough to deal with. The guilt I felt at having left him to all of it returned full force like a slap in the face. “Sick? Sick with what?”

He looked away and shrugged uneasily. “No one knows. Sometimes I couldn’t breathe. It had something to do with my lungs, and might have been tied into my eyes.” He paused. “But I was dying. I knew that. I had no reason to dream,” he said on an exhalation. He tipped his head back, fixing his eye on the clouds above. “No matter which ending played out, I was always going to be dead, in the end. I am glad,” he added softly, “that I died the way that I did.” There was a smile on his face.

Agitation flared in my breast. I cocked back and punched him in the jaw. I had caught him entirely by surprise, and he flew sideways with a loud “oomph!” I was upon him in an instant, throwing punches into his stupid face.

“Hey!” he protested, raising his hands to deflect my blows. Something was definitely wrong with him. Trying to stop my flurry of punches was the wrong reaction, _especially_ for Itachi.

“This is your life!” I shouted at him. “And it’s beating the hell out of you. What are you going to do about it, Itachi?” He wanted a war? I’d _give him_ a goddamned war.

I continued trying to thrash his face, and he continued to block. He yelled at me between blows. “Shisui! Knock! It! Off! What’s… wrong… with you?!”

“Who’s Shisui?” I demanded, snarling. “I’m your stupid, pathetic, useless life. Defend yourself before I kill you!”

“Shisui! Quit it you idiot!” He still wasn’t fighting back.

“FIGHT ME OR DIE!”

“STOP!”

“FIGHT ME OR DIE!” 

I felt it before I saw it. His uppercut connected with my chin. My teeth snapped so hard together I was certain they were cracked. I had bit a tiny chunk out of my tongue, too. My head was knocked back so violently that I felt the shock down my spine all the way to my lower back, and I landed hard on my butt. In an instant, he had me pinned, yanking my shirt and bringing my face within inches of his snarling one, every inch of him reminiscent of the killer that he was. “What is wrong with you?!?” he grated into my smiling face.

“Gotcha,” I said to him. “’Bout time you got over it.”

He stared at me, his anger fled. It only took him a second to grasp what I had done. “Hn. I see.” He dropped my shirt and my head banged into the ground. That was going to hurt for a while. “Thanks, Shisui.”


	5. The Taste of a Name

**Tenten**

* * *

 

"Shisui,” I whispered aloud to no one. I tested his name on my lips. It felt nice, there. Just like his lips had. The thought caused my face to heat, and my fingertips flew unbidden to my lips. If I thought about it long enough, I could still remember how they’d felt.

It hadn’t been like it had been with Neji. I hadn’t expected it to feel any different, but somehow it had. Neji had come to me in the dark of night. He’d been rough, and fast. Not that I hadn’t liked it—because I had—but there was something just… different…. about it. Neji and I had needed what he had done that night. The world was a scary place, and when we had been together, we were the only things in each other’s existence that had remained pure and beautiful.

Shisui… Shisui _wanted_. He had kissed me because he thought I was interesting, and beautiful—he had said that… he had _actually_ said that. He had looked at me and smiled and touched my face. And he had kissed me.

“Damn you,” I said out loud. “Damn you Shisui. And damn you, Neji, for dying.”

I don’t like being confused. I hate it, in fact. It was just one more thing that reminded me how weak women were, and I despised that with every fiber of my being. It was the hardest thing about being a Shinobi. A Shinobi must never show emotion. The rules had been written for men, though. I couldn’t freaking help it when my emotions bled out of my treacherous face!

The tears were brewing again. Angrily, I scrubbed them away. This was getting old in a real hurry. _Get over it, Tenten. Neji’s dead and Shisui’s alive. Where’s the problem here?_ For weeks I’d been trying to convince myself to go to him. _Just go to him and throw yourself into his arms, Tenten. Forget how ugly the world can be, even if it’s just for a little while._

But I couldn’t. Doing so would be admitting I had weaknesses. It would mean that eventually he’d see the dark skeletons hiding in my closet. Would he find me dirty, if I told him about Neji? Would he think I was worthless, if I told him about my past? Would he want nothing to do with me, if I told him the truth about my parents? I was damaged goods, not fit for anyone, not even Neji, and Neji had been damaged goods, too.

Damaged, but flawless.

And Shisui? I barely knew him. My only interaction with him had me flailing around like a wimp with a twisted ankle, crying like a bitch, and moaning about how Neji was dead. Then he’d left me there, lying, saying he’d come back but not meaning it. He was planning to die, and he knew that, and he _lied_. He left me there with some food like an abandoned pet. “ _Here, this will be enough to tide you over until hopefully someone finds you.”_ I hated him for that!

But then he’d kissed my face, and I had wanted so badly for him to stay. He had listened to my story, the one that no one had cared to hear in all my life, the one that I had carefully rehearsed for so long in case anyone had cared enough to ask. He had listened, and he had been interested, and he had seemed to care. And then he kissed my face and abandoned me.

 _Dammit_ , I cursed inwardly as I smudged away another bout of stupid woman’s tears.

My next interaction with Shisui had been on equally as short, equally as sweet. I braved that stupid ankle, ignoring every searing bout of pain as I traveled toward the main host of the fight. He had said I’d be a liability, and I didn’t care. I wouldn’t be in anyone’s way. I separated myself from the agony of my injury and I proved him wrong. It was several miles to where he was, and I walked it alone like there was nothing wrong with my foot at all. I found him and tore down the enemy that stood between me and my prey, and I had bore down on him like a wolverine, pissed that he had left me, and more pissed that he wanted to die.

 _Why_? Why did I even care? The questions continued to torture me. Why did _I_ care? Why did _he_ care? We hardly knew each other, after all.

And then the stupid goof had gone and _kissed me again!_ As if he’d done it a thousand times before, as if I’d just melt into his grasp and be okay with it!

And he had _complimented_ me?! No one dished out compliments these days unless they wanted something. That’s what I had learned. Men said nice things to you when they wanted to get at what was in your pants. They’d tried before.

Had I told anyone about that? No. Why should I? If I’d have said, “Hey, Guy-sensei, that guy at the hotel back in Utashinai tried to rape me,” I’d just have called attention to myself. I kicked that goon’s ass and left him bleeding, and that was good enough for me. I didn’t want to seem different in any way. No one was going around trying to rape the guys, so why should they want to rape me? I could handle myself.

“Shisui,” I said aloud again. It was a nice name. What did it mean? Death by water? Still water? Either one was an interesting interpretation. Does he cause death as one possessed by water, fluid and graceful? Was it an ill omen that had predicted his apparent death by drowning? Or was he as placid and calm as a still pond?

I thought about the fire in his new eye the second time he had kissed me, and dismissed that last thought. There was nothing at all calm and placid in him that time. He had been the aggressor. He’d knocked me off my feet, not swept me off them, and then he’d stolen that kiss without asking.

Fluid and graceful, then, and capable of causing a beautiful death. My heart fluttered in response to the image.

“Tenten!” someone shouted from below.

I nearly fell out of the tree in surprise. I had been so wrapped up in my inner turmoil that I hadn’t heard anyone approach. I looked down. It was Rin… Kakashi’s long lost teammate suddenly returned. I liked her. She was quiet, peaceful, mysterious, and strong. Plus, I had to admit that I was a little jealous of her healing skill. Wherever she had disappeared off to, she had learned a great deal before she had returned. “How the hell did you find me?” I asked. No one had ever tracked me down up here. It was a tough climb to the top, all jagged cliff sides and strong winds. To climb was inviting danger.

“Let’s see,” she mused, putting one finger to her lips and holding her elbow with her other hand. “If I wanted to go someplace so that a certain man with one eye couldn’t find me… where’s the furthest, highest, hardest to reach place that I can find?”

I grimaced, hearing the voice that said the words. She was so certain of it, too. “Is it that obvious?” I complained, dropping from my branch in front of her.

She smiled cheerily. “Only if you’re a woman,” she assured me. Then she shrugged. “Or, I should say, only if you’re a woman who is used to having a reason to hide.”

I couldn’t restrain my curiosity. “Why did you do it, the way that you did?” I asked. I hadn’t phrased the question the way I had meant, but she understood. I was asking why she has chosen to remain hidden instead of revealing herself to Kakashi, who thought she was dead.

Her smile dissolved. “If I tell you, will you go to him?” She sat down upon the grass and patted the space at her side.

I sat. “Go to who?”

She gave me The Look. “You know exactly who. He has been asking after you since we got back to the Village and the hospital set you free.”

I wanted to ask her why he was doing that, but I didn’t want to bother her with it. It was nice enough that she had come out here to talk to me. I wasn’t used to anyone bothering me when I wanted to be alone. “Fine,” I relented. “I’ll go talk to him if you tell me. But,” I added, “you have to tell me the whole story.”

She rolled her eyes. “If I do, you have to promise not to tell Kakashi and Obito.”

“Only if you promise to tell me why not,” I countered.

“Deal,” she said with a giggle, holding out her hand.

I shook it. “Deal.”

She took a deep breath. “A heart transplant, and some really good medical ninjutsu,” she whispered conspiratorially.

“What?!” I asked. If what she said was true, it could revolutionize Shinobi medicine.

She nodded somberly. “Kakashi had blasted out my heart. It was obliterated. Don’t blame him,” she cautioned as I opened my mouth to condemn him. “I asked for it. The Mist Village had sealed the Three Tails inside me to destroy the Leaf Village, and were deliberately chasing me back there to wreak devastation upon my home. I asked Kakashi to kill me, and he didn’t want to. I had to jump in front of his attack to make him do it.” She smiled, a sad, brief smile. “His attack was flawless, and he blew my heart to shreds.

“Obito says he saw, and that’s what broke his heart. He loved me, and I suspect he still does. He lost his mind and doomed the world on that night, but somehow he retained his humanity, and he spared Kakashi. He couldn’t very well take me with him, so he left me. And, when Kakashi came to, he said that I was gone. He had no idea how or why, but my body was missing.

“I don’t know how long I was out,” she continued, “but when I woke up, there was an old lady at my bedside. She gave her name as Kiseki, and she had two assistants who were about my age. She was excited that I had awoken. She was practicing a new technique that she wasn’t certain would work. All across the land, she had been studying medical ninjutsu, and mine was the first successful organ transplant that she had performed.”

I squirmed, thinking of my own training, where I had failed to revive the dead fish upon the table. I had been instructed, then, that I was never to attempt to revive someone who was already dead. “The brain begins to die within 20-40 seconds after circulation stops,” I recalled, “and cannot be recovered after thirty minutes.”

She nodded solemnly. “Yes, that’s true. I’m not sure how they managed that part, and I was loath to ask questions about my own death. My only guess, knowing what I have learned, is that they somehow kept the blood flowing or lulled my body into an artificial stasis.”

My mouth fell open in awe. “That’s… amazing.”

She smiled at me. “Kiseki was nothing short of miraculous,” she agreed. “She’d traveled far and wide, from as far away as the Land of Chalk.”

I blinked. “Where’s that?”

She giggled prettily. “I have no idea! She picked up one of her assistants in the Land of Mist, and another in the Land of Snow, and she goes around learning what she can about medical ninjutsu and teaching it to others.”

I sighed. “That’s such a lovely story. I wish I could do that… travel the world and help people.” I realized what I was saying and shut my mouth.

Rin was looking at me strangely.

“What?” I asked. “A girl can have dreams, can’t she?”

“Do you hate it here that much?” she asked quietly.

“No!” I blurted. “I… just don’t really fit anywhere,” I admitted sheepishly.

Her lips quirked in a smile. “You could,” she informed me.

Dammit, dammit, _dammit_! Shisui _again_! I crossed my arms and harrumphed. “Just finish the damned story,” I barked petulantly.

She laughed at me again. I hated her for being right. “I didn’t look for Kakashi because I loved Kakashi and he didn’t love me in return. So I spent my life learning medical ninjutsu with Kiseki. It was my dream to be a great medic-nin. I didn’t want to go back to Konoha. Doing so would mean that I was dooming myself to a life of unhappiness. Kakashi was there, and he still wouldn’t love me even if I came back, and I had the whole world to see.”

I sighed wistfully. “Oh, I see.” I felt the beginnings of a smile on my own face. “You pursued your dream. That’s worth it, I suppose. Shouldn’t you have at least told him you were alive, though?”

She frowned. “Why?”

I slumped. “I don’t know, so maybe he wouldn’t worry about you?”

She bit her lip and stared at me. “You mean, like how you ran on ahead and told Shisui that you’re doing just fine so he won’t worry about you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, I get it. I’ll go talk to him.”


	6. Strategic Maneuvers

**Shisui**

* * *

 

_Click._

_Tap._

_Click._

_Tap._

I rubbed my chin, contemplating. He had promoted his bishop, and I knew I was in trouble. I could tell by the smirk on his face hidden behind his hand that he knew I was had. He watched me from beneath his eyelids, waiting to see what I would do.

I abandoned the Gold that was endangered, moving my rook into his camp and promoting it. _Click_. He raised an eyebrow, snagged a knight that I hadn’t even seen, and smiled a knowing grin. _Tap_.

“Dammit,” I muttered, straightening my back. It cracked in several places and I groaned with relief. “I think you’ve got me again.”

Shikamaru yawned and stretched. “Yeah, probably, but if you played this out right, you could still win. If I were anyone else but me, anyway.” He leaned back on his hands and waited.

I blinked and studied the board. “Oh yeah?” I stared. The pieces blurred together, just a bunch of kanji on a wooden board. I clearly didn’t have a knack for this.

He pointed absently. “Yeah, if you drop the knight there, you can harass my camp and put me on the defensive. I’d be forced to move here, and you could go there,” he moved the pieces, demonstrating. “Any other player would likely move the promoted bishop here, trying to protect the pieces. Now, me, I’d drop the silver instead.” A slow smile crept across his features. “You should drop the pawn. The pawn is the most underestimated piece, especially by new players. They think, 'it only moves one direction, one space, so what good can it be?' But if used correctly, the pawn causes chaos. You force your opponent to move when he doesn’t want to. You put your enemy on the defensive when he wants to be attacking. You do this, and you control the game.” He peered at me from beneath his eyelids again, his expression sly. “Then, I go here, you go here, I capture this, you recapture with the Gold, I drop, you move in…” He moved a few more pieces. And then a few more. “Boom. You win.”

I watched, transfixed. How did he keep up with himself? “I don’t understand how you can see all that,” I said honestly. “That’s way too far ahead for me.”

He laughed. “I know. I’ve watched you. You’re pretty good, actually. Depending on where your patience is, you tend to plan 3-5 moves ahead. That’s a good, moderate place to start. It’s only after you’ve been playing for a while that you can improve. You start to see the same patterns, and you learn the way your opponent plays, and then you can plan accordingly. That’s part of the fun. You start to really understand your friends by the way that they play.”

I sighed with resignation. His words encouraged me, but they also discouraged me in the same way. Apparently I was a decent enough player. I managed to make him concentrate and try his hardest. Rumor had it that no one could beat Shikamaru except his dad, and even that had been only sometimes. Decent wasn’t going to be good enough, though. I was playing him at his favorite game, and he had already had years of practice.

“Hey, don’t look so glum, Shisui. You’re better than more than half of the people that I’ve played, and you’re only getting started. Maybe you should try playing with someone else for a while. I don’t want to kill your enjoyment, after all.”

There was a knock at the door. “Enter,” I mumbled just loud enough for whoever it was to hear. I was studying the board, trying to grasp what Shikamaru had been saying about how I should move.

“Hello Shisui,” Itachi said.

I glanced up at my friend, then immediately back to the board, concentrating. “Hey, Itachi.” I rubbed my chin again. I probably should shave, I thought, then realized I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the board. It took so much focus, and I didn’t have enough focus to cook eggs at this point. “Fah!” I spat, throwing my hands into the air. “Have you ever played this silly game?” I asked Itachi.

His brow crinkled with sympathy. “A few times,” he shrugged. “I wasn’t very good at it.”

Shikamaru shuffled over to make room on the floor. “Go ahead, Itachi. Shisui needs a new opponent. I think I’m a little too advanced and I’m just making him mad.”

“Alright,” he relented, sinking to the floor across from me.

I sighed with defeat and rearranged the pieces in the starting formation. He went first. _Tap_. Pawn.

 _Click_. Pawn.

 _Tap_. Pawn.

 _Click_. Pawn.

 _Tap_. Pawn.

 _Click_. I moved my bishop.

Shikamaru lit up a cigarette and leaned back, watching with interest. “Remember, Shisui,” he reminded me, “you need to control the center. Be the aggressor instead of the defender. Don’t let him control your game.”

“I know,” I told him. “I’m just not as good at it as you.”

 _Click. Tap. Click. Tap. Click. Tap. Click. Tap._ Our pieces moved strategically across the board, vying and shimmying for position. At times, it seemed like I had him backed into a corner. Other times, he pressed me and I had to fall back. It seemed we were working ourselves into a stalemate, but then I staged an attack on his knight, and Itachi laced his fingers together and leaned forward toward the board. “Hmm…” he hummed, his tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek.

This wasn’t good. Itachi had stopped playing and was taking it seriously. Great. I watched the wheels turn inside his brain and felt increasingly nervous. If it wasn’t bad enough that I had to lose to Shikamaru over and over again, now Itachi was here to make me look bad. I heaved a great sigh. I knew he was going to beat me. I just knew. He beat me at everything except taijutsu. It was simply one of the things about our friendship that I had to accept.

“Mm hmm,” he said to himself. _Tap_. He dropped a pawn in my camp, attacking the Gold.

I took the pawn with a knight, and he responded by dropping another a couple of spaces away. I felt suspicious, so I captured a pawn with the silver instead. He moved the knight to safety toward my king, so I took advantage of the situation and promoted the pawn. He moved his rook for reasons I will never understand. I dropped a pawn in his camp near the rook.

He surprised me, then, by taking my knight with his knight. I responded by snatching up his knight with the gold, fuming inwardly at having slipped. Itachi was smiling, just a little. My king was safe, for now.

It was all downhill from there, though. I had lost too many pieces, and Itachi was too skilled at the dropping of pieces. When at last he activated an idle knight, I nearly threw the board across the room.

“Nice,” Shikamaru praised him. “A very good move.”

I was so angry I could spit. I wasn’t a very good loser, it turns out. “I resign!” I grated out. I was tired of playing today. Tired of losing, tired of whiling my time away trying to surpass a master at a craft he may as well have invented. “I’m going out,” I grumbled, not caring how petty and childish I sounded. “I’ve had enough of this crap for one day.”

“Sorry, Shisui,” Shikamaru said, and to his credit, he did sound sincere.

“Don’t worry about it,” I sighed back. “You guys stay and play as long as you want. I’ll be back later. Hopefully by then I’ll be cooled off.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Itachi piped up. “I came to tell you that Tenten is looking for you. She asked me to tell you to meet her at Yamanaka’s flower shop.”

My expression was deadpan, and his was oblivious. I could have socked him. “You didn’t think perhaps that you should start with that?” I snapped.

He shrugged. “Sorry, I got distracted.” He waved. “It was fun playing with you, Shisui.”

“Whatever,” I bit out, and slammed the door shut behind me.

My mind whirled into action as I stalked to the flower store. Why flowers? She didn’t seem like the flowery type. Why had she been avoiding me? Why was she ready to speak with me now? Why, why, _why_?

I shook myself. There would be time enough for it later. As I moved to open the door to the shop, however, the door opened on its own, and there she was. Her face was forlorn, but upon seeing me, it morphed into furious. “Hi, Tenten,” I greeted meekly.

She cocked back her fist and slammed it into my face, sending me sprawling backwards. I heard her growl from where I fell. “What’s wrong with you?” she snarled. “I’ve been here for over an hour!” 

I raised my hands for protection. “I’m sorry! Itachi just told me a few minutes ago! I’m sorry I’m late, but it’s not like it was a date or anything, was it?”

Her anger fled, and a smidgen of the sadness returned. “No, it’s not like that,” she murmured. She held her hand out to me, and I grasped her forearm to drag myself up. “Come on,” she said quietly.

She led me out into the woods, further and further away from the Village. “Where are we going?” I asked curiously. I wasn’t worried about being alone with her; in fact, I rather liked the idea.

“Away,” she replied. “From prying eyes and prying ears.”

I grasped at her hand and caught her fingers. In doing so, I halted her progress. She rounded on me in a fury, steely eyes narrowed like dagger points. “Just what are you—“ she began, but I cut her off.

“Tenten,” I said to her, my voice hard. “What are you running away from?”

Her eyes widened. “What makes you think—“

“Tenten,” I said again, interrupting her a second time. Her eyes blazed with wrath at having been cut off again. “I can tell.”

“How?” she poked. “How could you possibly know anything about me?”

I pulled on her hand, drawing her in closer. “Tenten,” I said more softly.

“YES, I get it. You know my name. Congratulations,” she said bitterly. She yanked her hand away from mine and stepped away.

I bit my lower lip and waited. She was working herself into a frenzy. I watched with fascination, wondering how much of her was like me. I, too, sometimes let my temper get the best of me.

She wrapped her hands in her hair and growled with frustration. “I don’t understand you!” she cried out. “Why are you so fixated on me? What have I done? Who the hell are you? What…” she gasped, panting for air. “What do you want from me, Shisui?”

I could practically hear the thunder of her pulse, beating wildly at the skin of her neck as if desperate to escape. Her eyes were wild, feral, like a jungle cat looking for its escape, even if that meant tearing me to shreds in the process. I needed to understand her, to tame her, or lose myself. How does one tame a tigress, I wondered?

I stepped closer. She backed away, eyes daring back and forth. I stepped closer. She stepped back, a quick succession of retreating, rapid steps. She bumped into the tree, her breath frozen in her lungs. I stepped in closer. She had nowhere else to go. I didn’t want to push her too hard, too fast, but neither did I wish for her to escape. The last time she had run from me, she’d run too far, too fast, and I couldn’t find her. Now I was the hunter, and she was the prey, and I would not let her escape me again. I planted my hands on either side of her pinning her in a loose cage between my body and the tree. She could still escape, but it would mean touching me, and if she did that, I would pounce, I knew. I would not be able to help myself.

“I don’t know,” I answered, addressing her first question. “You’ve done nothing except that you’ve been interesting to me. I am Shisui Uchiha, and yet I don’t know who I am. All I want is for a chance to know you, so that I might figure out who I am.” I leaned in closer, within inches of her face. Her breath came short and fast. She was panicking. “Do you hate me so much? Maybe I should ask the questions.” I stepped in closer. “Why do you run from me? What have I done? Who are you? And…” I whispered dangerously, my lips brushing her ear, “what don’t you want from me?”

She emitted a low, throaty wail, a sound that thrilled me. It seared me right down to the marrow, my body igniting like dry tinder. I would have her, I vowed, or I would die in the pursuit. She swallowed hard, trying to throw the leash back on her billowing emotions.

Then, quick as a viper, she bunched her feet up between my body and hers and kicked outward. She did a flip in the air, landing delicately on the balls of both feet, arms stretched out for balance. She peered at me wickedly from beneath those gorgeous lashes. “Answers. Yes, I hate you. You lied to me, and you abandoned me, and you tricked me. I am Tenten, no surname, of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. And,” she added just as devilishly as I had, “If you want to know the answer to that last question…” Her muscles coiled and flexed “…you’ll have to catch me.”

She darted into the woods, leaving me staring, dumbfounded.


	7. Treatments Elicit Reactions

**Tenten**

* * *

 

 _The man has literally zero sense of protocol_ , I seethed inwardly as I ran. There I was trying to find us a nice quiet place to sit down and chat, and he had gone and backed me into a corner again, demanding, taking, bypassing every one of my defenses and getting straight to the point. Did he have no talent for subtlety?

He’d pinned me; I knew he meant to kiss me again. And the knowledge of it had made me flee, again. Had I really invited him to chase me? What if he caught me? I laughed at that; no one ever caught me. Neji was stronger than me. Lee had dogged determination. But no one could beat me in a sprint. I was the fastest ninja of our age bracket. I ran and I ran, and part of me died a little with every step.

I was doing it again, and I hated myself for it. Every time someone got close, I pushed them away and I ran. I had carefully sidestepped any friendships with my female comrades every chance I had gotten, and painstakingly avoided the attention of any of my male comrades. I had, by design, slipped past anyone’s radar. The only people that really knew I existed were my teammates. Lee was obsessed with Sakura, for which I was grateful. And Neji…

…Neji was dead. And if he wasn’t, he never would have loved me anyway.

“Stupid,” I admonished myself. Stupid for telling him about my past when he’d innocently asked all those weeks ago, stupid for letting him kiss me, and stupid for going after him when he’d left me there.

Stupid Shisui’s stupid face when he lied to me. If it weren’t for that look—that cursed, dead-already look—I’d have waited patiently for my death like a good Shinobi. But no. Stupid Tenten had to run after stupid Shisui because I had to know why. What made him want to die? What made him lie?

And why did he kiss _me_? Ask _me_? Chase _me_?

 _“You’ve been interesting to me… I don’t know who I am.”_ Was I imagining the lonely glint in his eye, or did I just have it confused with predatory possessiveness?

Oh gods… what if he really _did_ catch me? What would I do then? I took a deep breath and added chakra to my steps. I had always been terrible at chakra control, but for some reason had no problem enhancing my feet. I spurred along my movements, and after some time, began to feel as if I had really lost him.

I stopped abruptly, panting from exertion. I hated long distance runs, but I had pushed myself to outpace him. I rested for a moment, catching my breath, and turned to look the way I had come.

And he was there. Just _standing_ there. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. He wasn’t breathing heavily. He just stood there with that self-satisfied smirk on his face, arms crossed, leaning against a tree as if he’d been there the whole time. “Oh for _fuck’s_ _sake_!” I shrieked, frustrated, hands flying everywhere. “What are you, some kind of demon? Did you just _teleport_ here or what?” I often wished I’d had a teleporter. It would have made traveling a lot easier, especially around Guy and Lee. They pushed Neji and I beyond comprehensible human limits.

His smirk widened. “Yeah,” he answered simply.

I wanted to punch his stupid face in, so I tried. I lunged at him, my fist flying at him as fast as I could go.

He caught it easily and smiled down at me, his one red eye glowing like an ember even in the daylight. “You said catch you,” he joked. “You want me to fight you now? Can’t we just talk?”

I kicked straight upward, my toe connecting with his wrist and knocking his hand away. “I’m listening!” I roared at him, even as I jumped, twirled, and tried to nail him with a roundhouse kick.

“Fight you it is, apparently,” he muttered in amusement, blocking the first of my kicks and grabbing my foot with the second. He seemed to realize that it had been my injured foot a moment later, though, and he dropped me as if I were on fire. “Shit,” he swore. “I’m sorry!”

“I am _not_ —“ I screamed at him “—weak!” I somersaulted sideways, rolling to a crouch and aiming another kick at his head.

“I never said you were!” he shouted back as he leapt to avoid my kick. “Stop, I don’t want to hit you!”

“What do you want to do to me, huh?” I argued. I yanked a scroll from my belt, thrusting it through the air. It unraveled, and I called forth innumerable weapons, sending all of the straight toward his single eye. Hundreds of weapons with a single, easy target. I never missed at this distance.

His red eye winked open, startled that I had gotten serious. I wished I could call every one of them back, too, when I realized that I might actually hurt him, or worse. I gasped, appalled at what I had done. He didn’t need to suffer for my pain; I did. “Shisui!” I tried to yell.

But he was gone.

No, he was behind me. I twisted on my heel to face him. His eye wasn’t smiling anymore. He grabbed each of my wrists in one of his hands, kicked me over, and twisted my arms behind my back. His knee ground into my shoulders. I squirmed, but he roughly yanked on my wrists and dug his knee in even further. I yelped in pain and cursed my stupidity.

“Now see what you’ve done,” he tsked. “I didn’t want to have to do this.”

“Let me go!” I wailed pitifully. Every one of my worst nightmares was coming true. I was trapped, overpowered by a man, and probably about to get raped. I hated him because I couldn’t understand him.

Couldn’t understand how anyone at all could care for someone like me.

He held me down, but hesitated to say anything. “Please,” I whined, ashamed at my position. “Please, just let me go!” I hated the sound of begging. Hated it with every fiber of my being. “Shisui,” I sobbed. “Pleaaase…”

* * *

 

_“Please, Isonade! Please let me go!”_

* * *

 

The memory of it stabbed me in the heart, and I stopped struggling, dissolving instead into a fit of unwanted, treacherous tears. I felt myself spiraling into the pit of darkness that I’d been running from, despair opening its yawning jaws to swallow me whole. I fell, diving headfirst into the opening, ready to be done with this place once and for all.

I didn’t even realize that he had let me go. My face was pressed into his shoulder, and he was holding me tightly. My whole body was shaking, and I was so ashamed I didn’t know whether to cry or open my mouth to defend myself. In the end, I opted for silence. He’d seen me cry already, it didn’t hurt to continue the mess. I opened up my dark places and let the demons come screaming out, every bit of it an agony to remember. I’d been so afraid and so ashamed of it all that I’d been running ever since to leave it behind.

And inventing lies.

“No,” I sobbed finally. “Seriously, let me go.” I scrubbed a hand over my eyes as he released me. Free at last, I stood and dusted myself off. “You have no idea what you’ve done, or who I am, or what you’re asking for.”

“Tenten,” he began again in his deceptively soft voice. His muscles were hard and unyielding, and if he wanted to overpower me, he could, and there would be nothing I could do about it. The knowledge of that scared me, that anyone could just take from me what they wanted and that I couldn’t stop them. I was too weak, after all. Just another weak little girl in a man’s world. I’d never be able to stop them. I’d been trying my whole life just to be able to try. Every ounce of my being poured into training, training, and training.

“Stop it!” I shrieked. “You don’t understand. You can’t.”

His lips firmed into a thin line. “I might be able to,” he said, “if you’d just let me try.” His hand snaked out, gripped mine—a gentle yet unshakable grasp—and he pulled me down on top of him. I fell, not even caring enough to resist. I knew he was going to try it again. He always did, when I was this close.

Except that this time, he didn’t. His firm grip kept me from retreating, but he softened it as much as he dared, hands gliding up my bare arms to rest on my face. His eye stared hard into mine, searching for something. I don’t know what he hoped to find in there, or if he found it.

I bit my lip, bracing for the inevitable kiss. Of course he was going to try it. He was just trying to trick me again, lulling me into a false sense of security so he could steal it again. I should hit him. I should eject myself from this cage and run, far away, and never look back.

I should leave him, just like he left me.

“Tenten,” he said for the thousandth time. “Why won’t you trust me?”

I laughed. It was a hollow, false sound. None of this was funny. “You speak to me of trust,” I spat, “when it was you that lied to me and wanted me to believe you’d come back.”

His eye flickered—with anger?—and I felt his muscles tense beneath the crush of my body. “Me?” he said bitterly. “When every word you spoke was dripping with the truth?”

My mouth fell open, stunned. Had he known? He couldn’t have, could he? How much had he guessed? His frown quirked into a devilish, knowing smile. I realized then, that he had tricked me again. He hadn’t known, but he did now, just by my reaction. I was doing it again, acting rashly based on emotions, and it was giving me away. I hated being a woman. I wished fervently for the umpteenth time that I had been born with a cock and balls instead of what I had. Men were born for stabbing; women for being stabbed.

I tried to make it otherwise, but the two styles simply were not compatible.

I forced myself to smile at him, and I lied again. “Of course.”

His expression morphed into one that almost could have been hurt. He sighed. “Tell me to go away,” he challenged, “and I’ll never bother you again.” I opened my mouth to comply, but he silenced me with a finger. “But,” he cautioned, “know that if you tell me to go away, you will never see me, ever again. I give you my word as a Shinobi.”

I wanted to say it. I did. I wanted to tell him to go away. It would have been a lot easier, like a bandaid. Gone forever, never to haunt me again. I wouldn’t have to worry about why he somehow liked me, or why I was somehow drawn to him. I wouldn’t have to confront my feelings about him or about Neji or about myself.

And I wanted to tell him not to. _Please don’t go._ No one had ever cared to breach my shell of invulnerability. No one saw the things I tried to hide. To everyone else, I was happy go lucky, smiling, fierce and reliable Tenten. That was all I had ever tried to be. Everyone else believed it, so why couldn’t he?

Because he had asked for the truth, and he’d lapped it up like a kitten drinks milk, and then he’d made that pitiful face asking for more.

So, instead of answering, I asked. “Why?” It was the loudest question in my head. “Why did you lie to me?”

He chewed on his lips, and I could tell without wanting to that he was trying to be careful about what he was saying. It wasn’t because he was trying to lie again, or that he was trying to find the thing to say that would make me swoon and melt. No, he was simply trying to translate an unfamiliar feeling into words, and none of them were going to be good enough. “Because you wanted me to stay, and I knew that I couldn’t, and I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

I swallowed. It was so brutally honest and simple that I couldn’t help it.

Then, to my surprise, he began a tirade of his own. “Dammit, Tenten!” he swore quietly, shrugging from one side to another, trying to give himself more space as if he hadn’t shrunken it for the both of us his damned self. “No one ever wanted me around before. I’ve been a nobody for most of my life. I lived in the shadow of Itachi and the shadow of my mother, and nothing—I mean, literally nothing—that I’ve done has ever been for myself. Then you were there, with your pretty, pain-laced voice and that damnable fire in your spirit, fighting me and asking me questions. One minute you’re threatening to stab me and the next you’re apologizing for calling attention to the fact that I had no eyes.”

He took a deep breath, calming himself. “I had to go, and you asked me to stay. You don’t know how what you said affected me. I was on my way to my death. Yes, I lied. I had been planning to give up my life to bring back the friend that I had served unquestioningly, unfailingly, since I was a child.

“I almost _didn’t_ , Tenten. And I almost didn’t because of _you_.”

I froze. Iced all over like a pond in the dead of winter in the Land of Snow. Every cell in my body rejected his statements. It was unthinkable. He hardly knew me. He couldn’t possibly be affected by me that deeply. It was a trick. A trap. A snare, to lure my unsuspecting body to obey his whims.

I needed to be away from him. Far, far away. “Go away,” I said icily, my eyes narrowed to slits. “Get away from me. I don’t want anything to do with you. Leave. Me. _Alone_.” The words left my lips unbidden. He scared me. Him, and everything he represented, were so at odds with the way I’d led myself to belief that I just couldn’t take it.

He shoved me roughly, sending me staggering backward onto my butt, and then he stood. He stared down at me with a look akin to pity, and then with merely a blurring of the colors around him, he was gone.

And I was left feeling emptier than before, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.


	8. Bait, Traps, and Paper Targets

**Shisui**

* * *

 

 _Nice, Shisui. Real smooth, Shisui. Stupid. So_ stupid _!_

But I’d promised her that I would leave her alone forever if she had told me to, and she had. I had lied to her one time too many, it seemed, so I wasn’t going to keep that up. Go away, she’d said, so away I would stay.

But now what? She had been my next goal, the thing that kept my mind occupied. Even now, my mind was bent on her. She was hurting, even worse than I had ever imagined. I’d stepped all over her feelings. I was missing something vitally important, and in doing so I was making everything worse. Whatever I’d messed up, I’d messed it up good. It wasn’t like me to give up, but I feared that if I pursued her any harder, she’d well and truly try to kill me and my chances to know her would be nil. She wanted me gone, that much was clear.

But then I remembered the way her lips had yielded when I’d invaded… and I wasn’t so sure.

The more I thought about it, the more I was certain that she did want me, but something dark and terrible was stopping her. _Fear_? Had I done something to make her fear me? I didn’t think so, but what did I really know about women?

I sighed and shook my head. “Give up, Shisui,” I said aloud to myself. I poured myself a bowl of cereal and sank into the hard, miserable kitchen chair. “Fuck it,” I growled aloud, and I picked up my bowl of cereal and ambled over to the futon. I was the only one who lived here. No more rules about which room was suitable for eating. I flopped down on the futon and stretched my legs out. I dug the spoon in and started munching.

 _I need to get out of my house,_ I thought miserably as I ate. It had been two weeks since she had rejected me and sitting in here in the dark was doing me no good. Shikamaru didn’t even bother with me anymore. Itachi had turned out to be a pretty decent Shogi player, and the two had become peas in a pod.

 _Forgotten again,_ I thought unfairly. I had encouraged him to find something to do to stay occupied, and he had. But now where did that leave me? Bored, and alone! My preoccupation was supposed to be with Tenten. I’d expected to have her twisted around my little finger by now. There was a scene from my past, where Itachi was kneeling next to a young woman’s bed, smiling down upon her. She parted the blankets and showed my friend what heaven felt like.

Jealousy cut me like a knife. Well dammit _, I want to know, too!_

I had apparently selected the most difficult female in all of Konoha. That would be just like me, making things far more difficult than they needed to be. I chose the woman who smelled like war, so I should be treating her like a warrior instead of a woman. _To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. Know thyself, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories._ The famous war quotations* droned on in my mind, niggling free a memory of another phrase that I held dear.

 _A hundred targets, a hundred bulls eyes,_ I heard her say. I saw the red flowers bloom like a necktie around the chin of Madara Uchiha. I saw her furious, steel-eyed glare, and felt her velvet coated iron lips smashed against mine.

_He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious. Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win._

I would wait. I would wait and wait and wait, as long as it took. Sometimes, when you hunted prey, you had to bait it and then wait with your weapon for it to appear. I smiled as I struggled to understand my prey. What had I baited her with? _Attention_. What was my weapon? ... _Attention_.

I had seen it in her eyes. She had tasted the fruit of passion, and she would be back for another nibble. All I had to do was hold her still long enough and continue to poke her until all of her secrets spilled out. Eventually she would have nothing left to hide, and that was when truth would begin.

 _Well, my dear little Tigress,_ I thought. _Stalk me._

I thought that I knew her. She thought that I didn’t. It was true, I did not understand how to behave or what to say to get through to her, but I did know her. I could see it in the fire of her gray eyes, feel it in the unyielding iron of her lips and the way her muscles coiled like a cat’s, ready to flee or attack at any moment. She was a wild thing, unused to domestic pursuits and the attentions of man. The more I tried to pet her, the more she would snarl and run, afraid for reasons unknown. Fear rolled off of her in waves and took over her thoughts. She couldn’t see past it, and therefore could not act past it. She would prowl, snarl, and stalk until she trusted me.

I’d just have to make her trust me. But how does one tame a tigress? Not with leashes and chains. Not with lies and trickery. I’d have to prove that I was worth being trusted. No more lies, no more leashes. I had to stop cornering her or she was likely to feel trapped.

So I waited. Curiosity killed the cat, they say. Eventually, she’d come find me again. She had done it before. Twice, in fact. All I needed was patience. And I was a _very_ patient man... when I wanted to be.

Five days later, my patience was rewarded.

I was napping—because what else was there to do?—on my lawn. The day was too beautiful to miss, and for the first time, I was starting to enjoy the peace and quiet that came with the absence of war. The weather was picture perfect; it was sunny and warm, with just enough of a breeze to give you the occasional shiver of pleasure. I was sprawled out, hands tucked under the back of my head, eye closed, and nothing on but a pair of comfortable pants.

And then, for no reason at all, my eye blinked open. I had the distinct impression I was being watched. Sometimes, just that sensation is enough to rouse a person from a dead sleep. I didn’t feel like raising my head to see if I was right, though; I was far too comfortable for that, and to raise my head would have cost valuable effort that I was saving for the hardest part of my day: when I’d have to get up and go inside to lay down on my real bed, after the sun had set and the earth cooled.

My house was separated from the others, so I didn’t have to worry about embarrassment if I called out and no one was there, so I did. “If there’s anyone out there, there is plenty of space on this fluffy lawn for at least… oh, twenty-five people side-to-side.” I extracted my hand and patted the space next to me, then returned my hand to its place.

I felt the tension rise, and knew I had guessed right. She was here! A slow and satisfied smile crept across my face. It was so rewarding knowing that you had guessed right in some sort of cosmic game. I had considered the parameters and made my move, and I’d done it correctly. She hadn’t stayed away, but had sought me out, just as I had predicted. Now, though, the real test began. I had to keep her from running again. I made a mental note not to resist my urge to kiss her.

No sudden movements, I decided. And no prying questions. Perhaps I should just talk about me?

I was in the middle of my thoughts when I heard her slow, soft plod through the grass. To my surprise, she lay down next to me a safe distance away. I surmised that she had done so in case I tried to pin her again. Maybe she didn’t like that?

“Don’t get any ideas,” she said hotly. “I am not suddenly in love with you.”

“I’m not. Besides, that would be creepy.” I kept my eye closed, trying to pretend I was not jumping out of my skin with excitement at having her there. “I’m glad you came, though. How’d you find the place?”

She scoffed. “I’m a goddamned ninja, Shisui. I think I can find someone’s house in the Village of Konoha.”

“Ah. Well, good job. Do you like it?”

“Like what?”

“My house.”

She hesitated, as if thinking that even that much information was suddenly too much. I found it interesting that when we met, she was willing to share so much, but now she was willing to share so little. It was an odd change. “It’s nice,” she responded carefully.

 _Do not invite her to see the inside_ , I told myself. _Enclosed spaces means ‘trap.’_ I felt her tense next to me, and knew instinctively that she was frightful of the same thing. I needed to talk about me, to put her at ease. She needed to know me to show me herself. “It was my father’s house,” I told her. “He and I lived here when I was younger. I think my mother used to live here, too, but she died when I was little.” I was uncomfortable talking about myself, especially my past, but if I wanted to know her, really know her, I had to be willing to do it. My father’s name was Kagami. He was a student of the second Hokage.”

“What was he like?” she asked.

“My father? Brave, honorable, strict, quiet. He was not very loving, but I knew that he loved me. I don’t know if that makes sense or not.”

“Yeah, I think that it might.”

“I spent the first decade of my life trying my hardest to please him. I thought I’d never be as good as he was, in every way. He was always so wise, so… strong. Unreachable. I didn’t think anything could hurt him. I was wrong.” I could practically feel her curiosity now. She was listening, easing, her heartbeat slowing as she relaxed.

“I was a restless boy,” I told her. “And I sucked at throwing shuriken.”

She laughed then, quietly. It made my heart soar to hear it. I couldn’t help it, I had to look. So, I opened my eye and turned my head sideways. Her steel gray eyes were bright with merriment and… maybe it was smugness? “What?” I asked, feeling laughter bubbling up in me, too.

“Shuriken are the easiest,” she said raising an eyebrow.

“Oh really?” I challenged.

There was a slight shift in her, then, ever so subtle. She pushed herself to her feet, dancing lightly upon her toes. She crouched, one knee bent forward and the other folded neatly beneath her, resting on the balls of her feet. One hand rest at the scroll at her belt. “Give me a target,” she commanded, then corrected, “No, give me a hundred targets, moving ones.” Her fiery grin was infectious. Whatever she was about to do would bring her pleasure, and I was anxious to allow that.

But I didn’t have a hundred targets. I was dismayed. I sat up, crossed my legs, and dumped my chin into my hand. “I don’t have a hundred targets,” I admitted grumpily. I’d failed.

To my great surprise, though, she shut her eyes, cocked her head to the side, and smiled brilliantly. Her brown bangs shifted over the Leaf Village symbol on her forehead protector and she laughed again. I liked the sound of it. “You don’t?” she asked in mock surprise. “Well that’s too bad.” She twisted her other hand around behind her and pulled a smaller scroll. “It just so happens that I do!” she cried.

With that, she leapt into the air, flapping open the scroll. It unfurled in a circle, and a hundred balls of paper hurled in all different directions like sparks from a firework. When they had reached a certain distance away, the small scroll fell, and her larger scroll swirled into action, creating a spiral of paper around her like a hurricane. She was the eye of the storm.

At that exact moment, the balls of paper bloomed like a hundred roses, all different shapes and sizes, and each of them zoomed off in its own direction like they each had a mind of their own. Some went up, some flew toward her, some tried to flee, and some dove toward the earth. It was a whirlwind of paper targets with red bullseyes on them, and every one of them was about to be killed.

Tenten hovered in the eye of her paper hurricane, and with a keen focus I had not yet had the privilege of seeing, she began pulling any and all ninja weapons I had ever seen, as well as dozens that I hadn’t: shuriken, kunai, war scythes, war fans, axes, hatches, senbon, spears, and others I had no names for. She whirled, spun, and flung weapons with a deadly accuracy that was truly stunning to behold. All around her, paper targets flickered and died, metal predators snatching them out of the sky like so many falcons with iron talons. I watched, my mouth agape with awe and admiration. As someone who had failed so miserably at something as simple as a shuriken, I was well and truly impressed.

As her dance slowed and then stopped, she gripped the edge of her scroll and rolled it back up as she descended back to earth. Behind her, a single, unmarred paper target fluttered its wings. She looked so pleased with herself that I hesitated to point it out, but I raised my finger anyway.

And then a kunai fell from straight above it, piercing the paper’s heart and tacking it to the earth. She smirked, knowing exactly what had happened, and returned to her seat in the grass. She looked out upon my lawn, now a warzone, and huffed a short laugh. “Shuriken,” she mused, mocking me.

I clapped and bowed my head, honoring her skill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *These are from "The Art of War"


	9. Honey Instead of Vinegar

**Tenten**

* * *

 

I felt his eye on me as if it really were an ember, and one embedded in my skin. It was uncomfortable, in a way, to have an audience, but I had brought it upon myself, and I needed to own it. But then, the targets started flying, and all of the world winked out of existence, save for the red dots in the middle of the targets and the weapons that heeded my call. 

I felt powerful, in that moment, as I always did when I had the cold metal in my hands. Around me, frenzied paper targets tried to flee, and I stopped all of them with merciless, deadly intent. Every weapon that left my hand was a promise of death. No one could threaten me and survive. It was the craft I had taught myself when I learned that ninjutsu and genjutsu would fail me.

In another plane of existence, a cold and terrifying killer Tenten was striking down countless paper enemies. But deep in the recesses of my brain, I was remembering. There was a reason that I had forced my way into the Academy and soaked up knowledge like a sponge. I had vowed to be the best kunoichi the Leaf Village had ever seen, and then I’d barely been able to sense my chakra, let alone do anything with it. My genjutsu was pathetic, and my teachers were losing faith in me.

Until they put a shuriken in my hand. _Try this_ , they said, not trying to seem disappointed, and not daring to hope. They thought that I was too young to understand that I was failing, and in only a few more short weeks, I would be gone, whether they pitied my situation or not. The cold shuriken felt so right in my hand, as if it belonged there. I may as well have been born with it. It seemed to warm in my fingers, as if happy to see me, too. I squeezed it gently, acknowledging the deceptive strength contained in its small package, as if to say, _yeah, me too!_ I, too, was small and underestimated. We were _one_ from the moment we made contact.

I was the top of my class in every exhibition of weapons, from shuriken to kunai to senbon. I had surpassed them so quickly that I had created the immediate need for an advanced course. It was _more_ in every way: more targets, more weapons, more physical demand. I took to it like a bird to the skies. My ninjutsu and genjutsu never got much better, though I did passably well, enough to graduate. But there was no one— _no one_ —that could surpass my skill with weapons.

The day I graduated was like the day they handed me the keys to my own destiny. _And now, you are Tenten, no surname, and no man shall ever cause you fear again._

And they hadn’t… not until Shisui.

I still couldn’t understand why I was frightened of him, only that I was, and my instincts had never led me astray before, so why should they now? Being around him sent my pulse into a mania. I wanted to fight and I wanted to flee and I wanted to surrender, all at once. No one had ever made me feel like that, and it was profoundly uncomfortable. I wanted to be near him until I _was_ near him. And then he’d move in and my heart would try to escape right out of my chest, and I had to run just to calm it down.

If he knew how messed up I was, he wouldn’t want anything to do with me. Of that, I was absolutely certain. No one had issues like mine.

I rerolled my summoning scroll and casually strode back to where he sat, noting with satisfaction his open jaw, and the way he pointed at the target that hadn’t yet died. I closed my eyes and pricked my ears, waiting for the inevitable— _smack!_ And the paper target was nailed to the earth. I sat down and laughed about it, at the way he had stared, the way he had thought I’d missed one, and his shock and awe that I hadn’t. He clapped, smiling, and for the first time, I felt the creep of happiness into the dark hole in my chest.

And having realized, consciously, that I had felt that, I quickly retreated again. _Shit_ , I thought. I rose just as quickly as I sat down. “I should go,” I breathed, panic injecting itself into my system.

“No!” he blurted, surprising me. “Please, don’t.”

I looked at him, really looked. His brow was crinkled with concern and just a touch of hope. He reached out, one hand stretched toward me like a beggar at Sunday. He wanted to grab me, but he retracted at just the last second, avoiding the contact. I nearly breathed a sigh of relief that he had done that. I narrowed my eyes, suspicious, but his words had stalled me.

His expression softened, his black eye seeming beautiful to me for the first time. I hadn’t noticed it before, that time when I’d assaulted him on the plains of Suna. I’d rudely ignored the fact that he had somehow, miraculously been given the gift of sight. I suddenly felt ashamed that I hadn’t said anything about it, when he had, at the time, been so polite to me. “You’re… a very handsome man, Shisui,” I managed, surprising even myself.

His tense posture relaxed, and his hand fell. He smiled ruefully. “Maybe you _should_ go.”

His tone confused me, and so did his words. I’d complimented him, after all! I felt my fists ball at my sides and prepared to thrash him. “Why? Suddenly you’re not interested in me?” I fumed.

He stood so quickly that I flinched and didn’t move in time. In a fraction of a second he was there, his arms encircling my waist, his pretty black eye lancing me to the ground. My feet wouldn’t move. “No,” he rasped. “I’m _more_ interested in you,” he whispered. “And if you don’t leave, right this instant, I won’t be able to keep from wanting to kiss you again. I told myself I wouldn’t trap you again, and now _look_.”

We stood like that for mere moments, but it felt like forever. My face heated and I felt ill; too much blood was coursing through my body too fast. He was too close, and I _was_ trapped here. The only way to escape would be to break free, but my body didn’t want to obey my commands. I felt myself leaning, but into the line of his body instead of away.

Just as I began to feel drawn in, his hands released me as if I suddenly burned. He took one step back carefully, palms out as if I were a wounded deer, and maybe I was. I had always thought of myself as a predator, but around him I felt like the prey—trapped, alone, afraid, and underpowered.

It dawned on me that he was trying, seriously trying, not to scare me away. He was restraining himself. I recalled all the times he had pinned me, grabbed me, and kissed me, taking what he wanted without any thought for how I’d react. I’d liked it, and it had scared me, and I’d run, each and every time. He had analyzed the situation, knew that if he swooped in that I would flee, and so he had tried to change his predatory ways and become the prey.

He wanted _me_ to be the predator, to hunt him out, and blindly, I had. I applauded his brilliance even as I cursed my own stupidity. It was a different kind of trap, the kind that caught flies with honey instead of vinegar. He had lured me here, knowing I was curious and just as incapable of avoiding him as he was of avoiding me.

“ _Damn you_ , Shisui,” I growled. “What are you doing to me?”

His black eye dilated and widened, and he swallowed. His expression grew serious yet nervous. He took a breath. “Whatever it is you will let me,” he said softly.

He was the bait. The toned muscles of his chest and arms, the athletic tape wrappings that marked him as a fellow warrior, the patch over the eye-he-didn’t-have a scar of a war-ravaged time long past. The wicked curve of his lips, the ones I could still feel if I thought on it hard enough—and it didn’t take much—the clean, masculine smell of his body when he was too close, the roguish mess of black hair upon his head, strong broad shoulders. He was a treat for any woman, if she only wanted to taste. I asked the question I needed to ask, unable to stop myself. “Why me?”

He frowned. “You don’t like compliments,” he accused.

“Compliments are lies used to trick people,” I retorted. They’d been used on me before, and I wasn’t buying it.

“Then how am I supposed to tell you?” he asked helplessly, his eye flaring with irritation. “I was blind when I met you, or had you forgotten? I couldn’t see your face, so you can stop believing that I just want to rape you, right now.”

I flinched again. It was as if he knew everything. I opened my mouth to speak but he plowed on, his volume rising with every confession. “So I can’t tell you that I like you because you’re pretty, because I didn’t even know that. I can tell you that I heard your voice, and that I liked the way you smell, but does it mean anything? If I told you I like how war smells, would you find me repulsive? If I said that I could hear every inflection in your voice, the ones that give away that you’re hurting and lonely, but also fierce and independent, would you find that weird?”

I listened to his tirade, and for a wonder, found that my feet were still rooted. I wasn’t going to flee, not yet. I _did_ want to know, and know _everything_. The panic that was rising was an urge to defend myself, not to run. He was angry with me, and that was new. I wasn’t sure how to deal with it yet, so I let him continue.

His voice lowered again. “If I told you that I’ve never been with a woman… would you even believe me? If I told you that I had never planned to, would you think I wasn’t interested in that? If I confessed to you that I’ve always been jealous of Itachi, because even at thirteen he had everything that I wanted, would you pity me? Will you believe— _anything_ —that I say?”

I tried to speak again, but he still wasn’t finished. “If I told you,” he said so softly that I had to lean in to hear it, “that I long for the moments when you laugh and that I can’t look at you without wanting to devour those lips, would you be scared of me?”

He stopped, his mouth set in a terrible frown, so unlike his warm smiles. He had bared himself to me, and now he waited for what I would do with it. And still I hesitated. It was a lot of information to process all at once. His confession was so heated, I couldn’t disbelieve a word of it. The words that had poured out weren’t well thought out. He had merely spoken straight from his heart.

My heart pounded, but I found it wasn’t from fear anymore. I wasn’t going to be afraid of him any longer. He might hurt me, but I knew that it wouldn’t be on purpose. I was still considering if I should go or if I should stay. I needed time, to think, to be alone.

“Tenten,” he urged, apparently sensing the tension of the situation. “ _Please_ , don’t leave me again.”

The breath left my lungs. His words were strained in earnest, begging me to stay. Predators and rapists didn’t beg.

It didn’t matter anymore. Perhaps he would run screaming when my monsters reared their ugly heads. I didn’t know when that would be, but I knew it would happen. But this time, I wasn’t trying to protect him from myself, or to protect myself from him. I would merely have to accept that he had brought this upon himself, as had I, and if he didn’t like it, he would probably leave.

Though I’d be no more upset than I had ever been before. After all, loneliness and solitary confinement were my own brands of self-imposed exiles, and held no issues for me anymore.

“Okay,” I said on an exhalation. He blinked, the look in his eye so hopeful that I almost cried for him. Was he just as lonely as me? I crossed that tiny distance that he had placed between us, and I gave him his first willing kiss.


	10. A Feast of New Sensations

**Shisui**

* * *

 

If I had thought that my senses were awakened by kissing her the first two times, they roared to life like a wildfire when _she_ kissed _me_. I had thought that it was me who had control of the situation, but I dissolved into a puddle of feelings when she stepped forward and claimed me. 

This was it. The only woman I ever wanted to kiss again. Most people would probably think I was being a little hasty. She was the first one I had ever kissed. Perhaps I needed a larger sample size to determine my own tastes? Most people would be fools. They hadn’t been _me_. Their samples hadn’t been _her_. All reasonable thought vanished from my mind, and there was only her, and only me, tentatively entwined in the failing light of day.

She broke contact, her eyes cast demurely downward. I wanted to know what she was thinking. Our hearts thundered together, mine with the thrilling sensation of some new and exciting adventure. I watched her, observing her face for any sign of what she might be thinking.

_But she didn’t run!_

I didn’t want to speak. Any minute now, the spell might be broken, and she would run, as she always did. I merely waited. _Tell me what to do_ , I silently begged her. _Tell me to kiss you again._ I took a deep, shuddering breath, basking in the wild, frantic emotions churning in the depths of my heart. This moment could last forever, and I’d be okay with that. It was the infancy of something beautiful, and I never wanted to forget how it felt.

Itachi had said that I needed her to understand myself, and now, finally, I could discover who I was.

Finally, she untangled her hands from around my neck, and drew her arms in between us. “Um…” she began, at a loss for words. “That was…” She trailed off. I waited, heart pounding. She took a deep breath, too, and it came out smoothly. She was recalibrating, I realized, calming herself down in an attempt to think rationally. That was good. Irrational Tenten was frightened and prone to violence. Abruptly she smiled. “Worth another try, anyway.” Her eyelashes flickered, and she shut her eyes again, snaking her arm around my shoulder and standing on her tip toes, hungrily taking.

It was less hurried than the last one. Slow, the melding of lips and dreams and the tasting of tongues. I felt her heart pound against my own, and found that I didn’t want to breathe. A moment, a lifetime… every way to measure time ceased to matter. She accepted my mouth upon hers, and bravely entered mine with her tongue, exploring new territory, hesitant and unsure. When at last I was dizzy with the intoxicating contact, she rocked back onto her feet and leaned into me.

I wrapped both my arms around her and set my chin down atop her head, suddenly unsure of what to do. “I’m… a little new at this,” I told her hesitantly, trembling. I rubbed her shoulders. “Was that okay?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “That was alright. By all means, take your time,” she said breathlessly.

“I don’t want to push you,” I murmured. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you here, like this.”

She laughed, the magic slowly dispelling, our heartbeats slowing back to their normal pace. “I still don’t understand any of this. What is it about you, about me, about _this,_ that makes it so addicting?

I laughed too, squeezing her closer. “I don’t know, Tenten, but I like it, and I’m not done enjoying it yet.”

I felt her tense, and I knew that her ghost was back, in whatever form it took. Then, to my pleasure and surprise, she shook herself and dove in for another kiss. It was deeper, hotter, and shorter. When she pulled away, her eyes were glazed over. “Shisui,” she said, her voice strained and worried. “I’ve done this before,” she told me carefully. “With Neji.”

I felt a mild form of dismay, but it was gone just as quickly as it came. So I wasn’t the first to taste her or touch her. That was… regrettable, but manageable. “Okay,” said cautiously. There was more… she was going to tell me more, and she didn’t want to.

“You’re not bothered by that?” I shook my head. She took another deep breath, sighed, and turned away. “Shisui… there are things in my past… I might never tell you. I’m trying to say, you might never get to know the real me. I’m not comfortable with it. But, if you’re okay with that, and you promise not to hurt me, I’ll do my best.”

I struggled to grasp what she was saying, but in my haze, her meaning eluded me. I knew there were things in her past that she didn’t want to talk about, but I failed to think of any situation that would make her less desirable to me. I wanted her to someday feel good about talking about it, so that she could share the burdens that so very clearly haunted her on a daily basis. As to the rest… “Tenten, I won’t ever hurt you… I promise that.”

She bit her lip and smiled then, shifting her weight to one foot. “Then let’s go try something new.”

She gripped my hand and drew me toward my own house. Now, suddenly, I was nervous. I was avoiding bringing her in there on purpose. “But Tenten… trap,” I said helplessly, trying to dissuade her and generally being an idiot.

She turned, halting me, and stepped back in for another short, stolen kiss. “Shisui,” she admonished, “just shut up for a minute. What you’re experiencing is a rare moment where my mind and heart have agreed on something.”

My blood sang with expectations. “Oh, and what is that?”

“To hell with fear,” she told me, launching into another perfect, heady kiss. This time, she latched onto my lower lip with her teeth, and every nerve ending in my body stood at attention. What she was doing to me was surreal and awe-inspiring. I was drugged and obeying her every whim. She broke away again, giggling, dragging me by the hand into my own den. I followed like a pup on a leash, eyelids half drooping in stupor.

She walked into my house as if she owned the place, taking one sharp glance around the small interior, assessing it in one fell swoop. She didn’t say a word, only selected an area and pulled me to it. She stood in front of the futon and tugged on my hand, and I fell into it, staring up at her cherubic face, gray eyes, and sultry smile. The scent of exertion was more noticeable in the closed space, and I drank it in like a parched man dying of thirst.

As she straddled my hips, I lost my ever loving mind. I don’t know what had happened between her saying she never wanted to see me again and now, but I didn’t think it wise to question it. My body was aflame with arousal, and I saw by her eyes that she had seen it, too. She rubbed herself against me, and I bit my lip and shut my eyes, losing myself to her ministrations. Gingerly, I placed my hands around the small of her back, gliding my hands up her smooth, hard muscles and over her perfect buttocks. I sighed, but it came out as a groan.

“Don’t get too excited,” she murmured into my ear. I bit back another groan. The ecstasy of her breath on my ear lobe nearly snapped my control. I needed to let her be the guide. If I became the predator here and took what it was that I wanted, our trust would be breached in a way that I probably couldn’t fix, and she’d be lost to me forever. I barely restrained myself, keeping my hands outside her clothes and my hips still, though they desperately wanted to move autonomously. “We’re not going to do what you’re thinking we’re going to do.”

She sank down onto my lap, all of her weight upon my groin, and electricity replaced my blood. I was mesmerized, letting her claim me in any way she saw fit. She was comfortable in this position, her hands and mouth moving by her command. She wasn’t pinned nor trapped and had me completely at her mercy.

And I was perfectly fine with that. She was treating me _very_ nicely.

She cupped my face in her hands and gazed down upon me. I suddenly felt grotesque for my missing eye and I looked away. Her voice reached out to me. “What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned for my sake for once.

“You must think I’m ugly,” I confessed. “I only have one eye, and it’s not even mine.”

I felt her lips upon the crook of my neck and felt silly. She was taking my insecurity and throwing it away. “Nonsense,” she said against my skin. I shivered. “Battle scars are sexy.”

“You think so?” I asked.

“Mm hmm,” she hummed against my throat. “Do you think that’s weird, Mr. I-love-it-when-you’re-wearing-another-man’s-blood?” She laughed and kissed me neck, and my hips strained against her, begging for entry.

“Nah,” I said, nuzzling her face with my own, “that’s not weird at all. But Tenten,” I said through clenched teeth, gripping her hips to stop her slow grinding motion below. “If you don’t stop that I’m going to lose it.”

She paused and held her breath, thinking. The moment she stopped gyrating my groin ached with need. Every missed stroke became a phantom one, and I only needed her more. I wondered what was going on up there between her ears.

I didn’t have to wonder long. She hastily yanked the ties out of her hair, letting the buns free to flow around her face. “Fuck it,” she growled, pressing down upon me and capturing my lips.

I certainly had no reason to complain. I kissed her back, grinding our hips together and holding her roughly. In one smooth motion, as if I’d done it hundreds of times before, I twisted my body and pressed her back down upon the futon. I hesitated, just for a moment. “Do you mind if I pin you, just this once?” I asked.

“If you don’t,” she snarled at me, “I’m seriously going to kill you.”

I grinned and complied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to pretend that it's not awkward to write from a man's perspectives in sensitive situations. O_O


	11. Awe

**Tenten**

* * *

 

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind was a very scared, vulnerable Tenten, but she was tied up and gagged. I hadn’t forgotten the feel of his lips, and I hadn’t forgotten my romp with Neji. My body’s instincts had squelched the better judgment of my mind, and I wasn’t thinking. All capability for rational thought had abandoned me. There was only him, and me, and the untapped fountain of wealth between us. 

Shisui was causing feelings to rise in me that I had never indulged. My whole life had been about hiding, running, and lying, half baked truths and happier lies. He was new to this world, and I was hardly even fledged. What we were doing was merely an exploration of the senses. Our senses of touch were inflamed, every whisper of skin upon skin a feast, sending delicious shivers to places that had never been awakened.

It wasn’t like it was with Neji. When I had been with Neji, he had taken and I had greedily thrown everything I was into his grasp. He was very much in control, the master I would have gladly given myself to. It had been quick, fierce, and necessary. I didn’t regret it, but now, here, with Shisui, I could definitely tell the difference.

Shisui switched places with me, laying me down upon his futon, and then he stopped and I wanted to hit him for it. “Do you mind if I pin you, just this once?” The thought was so sweet and thoughtful that I wanted to hug him for it, but right now that was the furthest thing from my mind. There was an ache between my legs that only he could cure, and right now I just wanted him to shut his stupid face and kiss me.

“If you don’t,” I said viciously, “I’m seriously going to kill you.” Because for some stupid reason, I was trusting him. I wanted him to make me vulnerable and prove that he wouldn’t hurt me when I trusted him. Because if he could do that, I might begin to understand myself.

Something between a snarl and a moan lodged in my throat and refused to leave as he covered me with his body, effectively caging me in with his arms—gorgeously toned, wiry, muscular arms—and pinning my hips with his own. I felt the currently penned up erection in his pants and hissed with anticipation. I clamped my legs around his hips and held him there, refusing him the option to let go. There was so much pent up tension between us that I already longed for the moment of release, and yet wanted it to last as long as possible, hovering somewhere between heaven and hell for the maximum amount of time.

What I was doing with Shisui was nothing less than indulgent. I was his first experience with women. He was caught somewhere between wanting it all at once and wanting to take the time to savor it. I didn’t so much care, so long as I was feeling the way I was feeling and didn’t have to think. The less I had to think, the easier it would be. The more his mouth and hands roamed over my body, the harder it was to think.

“Can I take this off, now?” he asked me softly, his hand splayed across my breast.

I knew why he was being polite, but I wished that he would stop it already. It was my fault that he was being cautious, but I wasn’t having any of that. Impatiently, I raised my shoulders and twisted my hands behind my back, gripping the hem of my blouse and yanking it over my head. I was wearing a snug black undershirt meant to keep my boobs from bouncing out of control while I trained. I struggled to angle my elbows out of the way so I could grab at it.

He seemed to sense the problem, and quick as a flash, he unsheathed one of the kunai from my leg holster and sliced through the fabric like butter. I watched the fabric fall away with approval and stared up at him, my breasts bared to the world. It should have made me feel vulnerable, and strangely, it didn’t. I wanted to stop and think about why, and yet I found I didn’t much care. Having my clothing cut from me was a first, and the danger of a knife being so close but not cutting me charged my blood with adrenaline. I felt that I wanted to fight him, but for fun this time.

His brows crinkled in apology as he suddenly realized that he had ruined something of mine, and he dropped the knife upon the floor with a loud clatter _._

 _Okay, stupid Shisui_ , I thought. _Enough_. I placed my palms against his chest—smooth warm, silky skin—and traveled up to his shoulders and his face. He shuddered and looked at me, begging without words. “Shisui,” I whispered, “I know that I’ve made you skittish, but I promise, I’m okay right now… _Let go_.”

His expression softened and grew worried. “What about tomorrow?”

I raked my nails down his chest, enjoying the way his skin turned red. His muscles tensed, and he groaned again. That sound was really starting to get me riled. “Shisui,” I snarled, “fucking forget about tomorrow and let the fuck go!” I pulled his torso down on top of me and sank my teeth into his shoulder. He cried out with surprise and enjoyment, and I hissed into his ear. “You asked me, once, what I _wouldn’t_ like for you to do to me,” I reminded him. “I’ve loved every moment of the things that you’ve done, or I wouldn’t have come. Now, for God’s sake, Shisui, just do what you’ve been wanting to, and _damn_ the consequences. If I want you to stop, you’ll know.”

Finally, blessedly, the encouragement rammed home. An unearthly snarl rumbled from his throat, and he buried his face in my chest, licking, nibbling, tasting, teasing. Mine were the first pair of breasts he had savored, and something about that made me proud. As his face pioneered new territory, his hands roamed, too, setting all of my nerves on fire as they mapped out the places on my body that had never been touched—not even by Neji—from my ears to my shoulders, down my arms, across my chest, around my hips, and up my thighs. 

I felt transformed. Evolved, even. Every spot that he touched was reawakened, alive as if for the first time, and blinking in wonder at a new world. I realized that to him, my body was not a conquest, nor a tool to achieve his own release. Somehow, in a way I doubtless would never understand, I was sacred to him. He grazed my nerve endings with the palms of his hands, with touches both so light as to leave my skin sizzling for more and so rough as to knead the flesh away from its origin. Sounds left my mouth that I didn’t even know I could make, and each one that escaped my throat brought forth its twin from his.

My skin was electrified. Ever bare skin touch might as well have been with a fire brand, and still he drew the moment out. I couldn’t stand it much longer. I was ready, even if he wasn’t, and he seemed determined to test every inch of me before continuing. Or maybe he was still trying to be the gentleman, and did not wish to make the first move?

I decided that that was probably more likely. He’d been waiting for my signal at every step. I vaguely recalled that I had also warned him not to expect, well, _anything_ from me tonight, and that if I wanted anything more I was going to have to be more direct. My command had restrained him, so it would need to my hand that rescinded that command.

I reached for his crotch, and when I found him, he stilled. “No,” he said, covering my hand with one of his own and freezing me with a glare. “You’ll be angry with me.”

His restraint was my fault, and suddenly I felt sorry for that. I rubbed his erection firmly, hoping to rile him beyond recourse. “Shisui,” I warned, “I can pretty much promise you that I’ll be angrier if you don’t.”

He leaned down and kissed me. Into it he poured his promise, and his apology, for whatever he was about to do to me. “You’re very precious to me, Tenten,” he said against my lips. “I just don’t want to mess this up.”

I smiled against his lips and began undoing the laces of his pants. “You won’t. If anyone is going to mess this up, it will be me.” I claimed his lips in mine to shut him up and untangled the laces, pushing them down enough to free him. His cock sprang free, hard and heavy and never touched by another woman in any way. I wanted that. I would claim it as mine and never share it with anyone else. Woe betide the bitch who tried. “Your turn,” I told him wickedly, leaning back on my elbows, eyes locked on his.

Okay, maybe I glanced at it. A little.

He smirked, that rakish facial expression that I was beginning to associate with him. He had a wonderful sense of humor, making light of things that really weren’t supposed to be funny. He kept his eyes trained on mine as he slid my trousers down, that sly smile never slipping. I could have smacked him. Or eaten his lips, I couldn’t decide which. He was so utterly adorable and addicting that I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

Well, I thought, a joke for a joke. “Hey, when you get close to that point where you can’t hold back anymore, pull out, okay? That’s how babies happen.”

His face reddened, but he nodded. “I’m not ready for that, either,” he assured me seriously.

“Good.” I took a deep breath, growing uncertain. I arched my back, rubbing myself against him to spur him on. “Stop giving me time to think, you idiot!” I urged.

“But you’re so cute when you’re frustrated!” he mocked me. I opened my mouth to protest, but he silenced me with a kiss, and who was I to complain? All the breath I’d gathered to argue with him left my nose instead as a groan of appreciation.

It was somewhere in the midst of that kiss that he thrust into me for the first time. He was just the right size and stiffer than iron. My brains scrambled instantly at the invasive contact, and I moaned against his lips. His lips parted, and his breath escaped against my mouth, hot and damp and so charged with sensations that even that was enough to excite me. I latched onto his lip with my own as his brow--and mine--creased, caught up in things he had never experienced and could not yet understand. I held him tight as he tested his first slow, languid strokes, trying to lend my support. His mind was detached from feelings, struggling to wrap his thoughts around how something could feel so good and be so simple at the same time.

I was inclined to agree with him. Everything around me had ceased to matter. Reason was suspended, mistrust had become a ghost of a memory. He was inside me; if what he was doing to my body was a violation, then I would gladly be destroyed. I wrapped my legs around his hips, hoping to encourage him, and his forehead eclipsed into mine. “Ohh, Tenten,” he whispered shakily, “this is—“

“…Divine,” I finished for him breathlessly. “I know. _Stop_ _talking_.”

His answer was a slow, smooth, hard thrust and another groan that went straight to my core. No, this was not at all like it had been with Neji. It wasn’t about him; it wasn’t about me. We were in it together, discovering things about ourselves we didn’t know before. Apparently, I enjoyed being pinned and pillaged. Who knew?

When he was done testing by way of slow, smooth strokes, and his instincts took over, I was slain. I knew the instant his brain shut off. His eyes rolled off into space, and his lids shut, and in that moment his hips jerked without his say so. Something primal rumbled from his throat then, and his shoulders hulked over me. I gazed lustily up at his ecstatic face, though he couldn’t see me observing him. His face was pulled in concentration, and he was focused on himself as well as me. But, I was watching, and enjoying every fraction of a second of those facial expressions that were my fault.

I don’t know which slutty god was at work when he transitioned, but whoever it was has my fervent thanks. Without any warning at all, he stood up on his knees, jerked one of my knees over his shoulder, and just went. His speed and intensity increased, and with my knee over his shoulder he bore down on me, and my mind literally blacked out. “Oh God, Shisui, what—yes. YES!” I cried out, overcome by the sensations and how he had hit me just right. He whimpered, nearing the edge of his release, too, and unconsciously, I raked him with my nails again, overcome with a ferocity that had no outlet. I yelled out, balling my fists, digging into my own palms, as the wave of pleasure claimed me and broke me over the shore.

He cried out, too, pulling out at the very last second to jettison ropes of hot semen on his futon and upon my thighs. In that moment, I was proud of him. He had done well, and despite the new sensations, had not lapsed in judgment. When both of us were complete, he gazed down upon me, his cheeks red from embarrassment, but the smirk was back. He bent down to kiss me, and it was the sweetest pleasure I could ever know. His touch was soft, all ferocity spent. Inches from my lips, he said, “I thought you said we weren’t going to do that today.”

I chuckled, a throaty—surprisingly genuine—laugh. “I’m a very good liar,” I told him. “And you’re not a bad lover, either.”


	12. The Code Word to Heaven

**Shisui**

* * *

 

I hadn’t unfolded the futon, so there really shouldn’t have been room for both of us, but I slid in next to her carefully, my pulse thrumming with drunken satisfaction. 

My senses were gluttonously satisfied. My nerve endings were pleasantly buzzed from the curious friction between opposing skins. My fingertips were content with the memory of touching her, a feeling I hoped to never forget, and that I fervently hoped would happen again. She was even more beautiful naked and sated than she could ever be otherwise. I’d like to think that it wasn’t because I was perverted, but rather that seeing her like that was almost like seeing her reborn; in naught but her skin, and blissfully ignorant of everything that wasn’t here and now. My fingertips traced lazily from her knees to her shoulders, wondering at the sinuous curves there: up the hip, down the curve of her abdomen, across her breasts, and up around the hollow of her neck. It struck me, then, how ugly men were in comparison, with our unartistic straight lines. There were only a few sounds here in this room, and all were soft and subtle.

Our heartbeats, still thinking about slowing, but deciding otherwise before they did. I knew why mine wouldn’t shut up; I had had feelings for her before, but that was before she had invited me into her body and into her trust, and now that I was there, I felt the definitive urge to protect them both. My heart was marching up and down on patrol, and in its militant cadence I heard the truth: I was in love with her. Just thinking that set my pulse to racing again. I wanted to say it, but knew she’d reject the notion, so for now I’d just keep it to myself. As for her heart rate, I was sure she was just now starting to remember why she’d been avoiding me in the first place, and she’d be thinking of going soon.

I nestled my nose and my chin into the space between her face and her shoulder and breathed deeply. This close, there was so much more going on than just the sweat of warrior training. There was also a brand of feminine sweetness, a scent that was clean and pure and so her that I wanted to bottle it up and take it with me. There was also sweat, both from training and from the heat we’d generated between us. Overlying it all was an aura of musk. It was a scent that we’d made together, for I sensed it clinging to my skin as well. It was a drug, and one hit would never be enough. 

There was a time, long ago, when I’d resented being blind. And then there were times like these, when having my ears and my nose sharpened worked in my favor. I was eternally grateful for the eye, as well, so I could witness the exquisite flawlessness that was a satisfied, courageous woman at rest.

Her bravery was awe-inspiring. I’d thought so from the moment we met, when she’d hobbled toward me with a bone jutting out of her ankle with hardly a hiss of pain. And then again, when she’d sucked it up and marched miles to a warzone just to smite me with her wrath. I closed my eye and felt the smoothness of her cheek against mine and wondered what could possibly have happened to her before to have her so freaked out. I hoped that someday, she’d trust me enough to tell me.

“How do you do it?” she asked me quietly.

My thoughts weren’t yet collected, and her question only tried to pierce the fog that was surrounding them. “Hm?”

“How are you so strangely confident?” she asked, her voice small and meek. She expounded further. “You keep hinting at this past where Itachi was your superior and your father was miles ahead of you, then you lost your eyes and were left forgotten in that little village, right?”

I wasn’t sure where she was going with it, but any time she was talking was good. Our conversations would build the trust that would let me reach her. “Yeah.”

“So how is it that after all that, you can still be so sure of yourself. I mean…” she paused, determining what to say. “What we just did… you’ve never done it before, you said. And yet—“ I felt her wriggle, discomfited by having to voice it “—that was… in a word, amazing. And now, here you lay, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Weren’t you… nervous? Or, at the very least, feeling a little inexperienced?” She waited, her ear turned minutely toward me.

I smiled against her face. I knew what she was getting at. She thought that the answer to this question might help her with her own issues. Very well. “No,” I told her honestly. “I give everything my all. I’m usually pretty good at things, so if I’m trying my best, it’s usually at least as good as everyone else’s average, even on the first go, but that’s not really related to the past—and Itachi, and my dad, and all that.” I could sense that she was confused, so I went on. “The two things are related. My past probably looks a little… rough,” I admitted. “But my father taught me a lot of great things and made me who I am. Itachi was first my rival, and then my friend. And being blind wasn’t as bad as I would have guessed. It sharpened my other senses and led to some new skills.” I realized I hadn’t told her about my chakra modifications, and decided I should do that sometime. I stroked her arms, never getting enough of the way her skin felt.

“I don’t have any regrets,” I continued. “People shouldn’t live with regrets. Every step of the way, we face choices. Every time you make one, take it seriously, and then each one will always be the right choice. You can’t go back, so don’t try to. If your choice was a mistake, take steps to correct it. Each mistake is a learning experience, and each instance that would be considered a ‘regret’ was only a tool to shape you. I lost my right eye because I was too slow and had underestimated an enemy. I consider myself lucky that I wasn’t killed. I don’t regret giving Itachi my left eye. He used it nobly, and helped us win the war.”

“Now,” I told her, wiggling as close to her as possible. She relaxed against the line of my body and sighed. “As to that second part… no, I had never done this before. But it was you.”

I knew she’d ask, and I smiled when she did. “What do you mean?”

I kissed her cheek. “You’re irresistible. Every bit of you needs to be appreciated. All I did was follow your cues. ‘I have a pretty neck,’” I imitated. “So I kissed it. ‘Shut up, Shisui.’ So I did. And then you wrapped those steel thighs around me and I understood. Whatever strange, inhuman sounds escaped your mouth were answered by my body. I merely did whatever you told me to do.”

She giggled. “But I never said a word!”

“You didn’t have to,” I assured her. “My ears are better than that. I was a good student, and I paid attention. The way you breathe, the way you respond, the way your fingers curled up in my hair… it’s not that hard to figure out.”

She was quiet, for a time. Then, “My sounds were _not_ inhuman.”

I grinned and moved over her body again, resting between her thighs. “Were too.”

Her smile came more easily this time. “Yeah, well, you didn’t sound so manly yourself.”

I kissed her. “You unman me,” I told her honestly.

She reached down and grasped me between both of her hands, laughing against my lips. “Quite the opposite, I think,” she said to me.

I slid into her easily; she was still plenty wet from before. She gasped out and groaned and shook her head in exultation. “I don’t think this will ever get old,” she said breathily.

“I’m a fan of it myself,” I assured her, burying my face in her chest. I marveled at the change in her since we met. Before, she had been guarded, secretive, and spiteful. I looked up at her now, with her eyes shut, her mouth open, and one hand gripping the edge of my futon. She was newly minted, giving herself to me and receiving whatever I saw fit to give her, and I strove to please her.

I buried myself as deep as I could go and hovered my face over hers, enjoying the way her face scrunched up with each push and the soft cries of pleasure that left her lips without permission. I could do this all day, every day, and die a happy man. There was nothing in the world that could compare to the feeling I got from pleasing her. I wished for her to always be happy, and if need be, I would lock her in here and never let her leave, just for want of her smile.

As her arousal peaked and she clasped her legs around me, I answered her wordless pleas and picked up the pace. Faster, harder, deeper… that’s what that meant, and I complied. Her heels pressed into my buttocks and pulled me in, and her frenzied, mindless traveling hands told me she was close. Her body told me how the story should go, and I wrote it. “ _Shisui_!” she gasped.

There is no feeling like the sound of a woman gasping your name. I’m convinced that it is the secret code word to the gate of heaven, but only if said in just that way. I shut my eyes to capture the sound, imprinting it in my memory. I leaned in and covered her mouth with my own. Her face was warm and reddening, and the sounds emanating from her throat were quieter but more urgent against my lips. I hid my face in the hollow of her neck and felt my own pleasure threatening to overflow. “Yeah, sweetheart, I’m right here,” I whispered into her ear.

She whimpered, then, and I felt her fingers tighten around my shoulders. Then, like a benediction, I felt her already tight walls constrict around me once more. My breath left me in a rush and my whole body tensed. I was certain I had died, probably in the war at some point, and that this was my reward for my lifetime of service. “Oh… _God_!” she hissed, her entire body writhing beneath me.

Darkness swam behind my eye, and in the pit of my stomach, I was tightening, too, pressure building like a rising tide. I pulled out and pulled her body in close, hanging on for dear life. I was sure I was dying, my body was spasming so hard. I shut my eye tight and heard myself whining, whimpering, just as she had. When it was over, I held my face to her body and found that I could not move. I was well and truly spent this time.

“Shisui?” she asked breathlessly after a moment, running her fingers through my hair. It felt wonderful.

Coherent words simply weren’t happening. “Hm?”

“You okay?” Her voice was laced with concern.

I didn’t know what had happened in the past ten seconds (was it ten? More? Less?). I was pretty sure the earth fell out from beneath me and I had simply been suspended in space and time. All I know is that I was glad she was there with me, anchoring me to the mortal plane. My breath came in ragged gasps, but I managed, “Yeah.”

She brushed her fingers over my sensitive shoulders, and I sighed with relief. Whatever stunning epiphany had happened to me, it was over and I was still alive, remade even, and Tenten was still here. Things were shaping out to be pretty awesome, in fact.

When at last, my energy returned, I realized that it was dark outside. It made sense. When she’d appeared on my lawn, it was late afternoon and the sun was already beginning to go down. With dismay, I surmised that meant that she would have to leave soon to go back to her home. That begged the question, though… where did she live? I hesitated to ask, for fear that she would shut me out again, and whatever voodoo magic was at work here tonight would be gone. I racked my brain, thinking of a better way to ask. “We probably should get cleaned up,” I said to her, “and then if you want to go home, I can walk you there.”


	13. Honey Trap

**Tenten**

* * *

 

It took a moment to register that he was offering to take me home. I hadn’t even paused to consider what time it was or that I needed to go home. I glanced at the window and noted that it was, in fact, dark outside.  _Shit_ . Scared, tied up Tenten in the recesses of my mind was whimpering, trying to remind me that we needed to escape this before it was too late. I was too comfortable here, like this, with him, and I wasn’t ready for that.

So when he offered me a shower and a walk home, I should have gone home. The trap was slowly closing, and my escape route was shutting down. If I didn’t leave soon, there wouldn’t be a way out. I should have sworn, hastily grabbed up my clothes, spouted venom about how he’d taken advantage of me, and then dashed out the front door. I considered it, weighing my options.

And then, when I looked at how far away my pants had ended up and realized that my blouse had fallen behind the futon, it hit me that I was so damned tired that the last thing I wanted to do was move. A shower seemed like too much effort, let alone the walk all the way across the Leaf Village to the shady grove I called home.

Tied up, jittery Tenten was screaming from behind her gag, mentally eating a soldier pill and telling me with silent tears to get over it. I needed to leave, to clear my mind and think about what was going on. This wasn’t safe; none of it was. 

But delicious, perfectly contented Shisui was warm and snuggly, purring like a kitten as I combed through his hair with my fingers. He smelled like clean, masculine sweat and me, and I felt comfortable right here. A dangerous thought occurred: “Yeah, let’s take that shower.”

I tried not to notice the very subtle hint of disappointment as he assumed that meant ‘shower, then home.’ To see that expression would be another shackle about my wrist. I had _tried_ not to see it, but I had. He was hiding it well, trying to save me from the guilt of leaving him here.

We left the clothes where they were and he led me by the hand to his small bathroom. This had been a house for men, and the bathroom only contained what it needed: a toilet, a shower stall, and a pedestal sink. No drawers or cupboards or medicine cabinets. His razor rested on the sink. There was a single towel on the rack. He disappeared down the hallway for a moment and came back with another towel. He hung it on the rack next to the other one and opened the faucet.

When the shower was running, he turned back to me and gathered me up in his arms again, his face glowing with that devilish smirk of his, his eyes half lidded. He encircled my waist with his arms and pulled me in, my arms automatically arcing around his neck. That much skin-to-skin contact was… liberating. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

My inner, incarcerated Tenten howled and keeled over, kicking and shrieking through the gag. For a moment, as I stood there, I considered listening to her, removing the gag, carefully untying her, and leaving his house with her in hand. Shisui was standing too close, his eye glazed over and that damnable, virulent smile. I had partaken in his drug and he held sway over me now. It was everything I had fought against for my entire life, to be this out of control. With a word and a touch, he owned me.

In my mind’s eye, I apologized to the tied up Tenten, and she blinked in relief, thinking that I’d finally wised up. Then, I brutally twisted that bitch’s neck and kissed my man. When this shower was over, I was going to tell him everything.

And then I was going to sleep here. In his bed.

My heart was spiked with adrenaline, beating much too hard, too fast. I leaned into him, curling my body into his. Yes, it was dangerous, and risky, and everything in between. My trust might someday be betrayed. He might lie to me again. Perhaps this would all wear off tomorrow and he wouldn’t want me at all. I’d had the same thoughts just yesterday, but I found that they didn’t have the same potency as before. Maybe tomorrow would suck, just like yesterday had.

But today was _fun_.

He slid the curtain aside and stepped in, held it open and left me space. The stream of water was rolling down his face, and the messy shag atop his strong face matted instantly into his eye. Despite that, the grin was still there. “Coming?” he questioned.

I stepped into the water. The space was small, but that only made it more intimate. “This is new for me, too,” I told him.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve never showered with a guy before.” He rubbed shampoo into my hair, and I let him… and it was wonderful.

“How long were you with that Neji guy?” he asked me.

I should have had trouble telling him, but I found that I was remarkably free with my tongue today. “Once.”

“One… year? One month?” he probed, massaging my scalp with his fingertips.

“No,” I corrected him. “Just once.”

His fingers stopped their ministrations. Abruptly he chuckled. “You’re just as new at this as I am, then.” He went back to shampooing my hair.

I frowned. “No, you just started this today,” I countered playfully. “I have wayyy more experience than you do.”

He pushed my head forward into the water. I spluttered, indignant, and pushed him back.

In response, he twisted me and pinned me against the cold tiled wall. The chill shocked me and I gasped. His mouth was upon mine the instant my lips fell open, and when I gasped, I sucked the breath right out of him. He chuckled against my lips and drew me back into the water. It cascaded over us both, and I was struck by the beauty of the moment.

Then, he sidestepped and grabbed the soap and began washing me. It felt nice to be petted and washed. I leaned on my elbows against the wall and shut my eyes as he lathered me attentively. Relaxation was seeping into my bones and I found myself wanting more and more just to sleep. His hands were soothing and strong. He rested his chin on my shoulder and nipped my ear.

I smiled and purred with contentment.

“Don’t forget here,” he murmured silkily, and then his third finger was inside me.

I exhaled slowly, feeling invaded in a way that was new. His finger wasn’t as big as he had been, but it had a much wider range of motion. “How…?” I couldn’t finish the sentence. The words eluded me.

“Shhh….” He shushed into my ear. “Sometimes, you don’t have to know the answer all the time.”

 _How did you know how to do that?_ I wanted to ask. But he had bade me to be quiet, so I obeyed. Until he pressed against a certain spot, and a startled yelp squeaked out.

Immediately, his hand clapped over my mouth. “I do believe I said to _be quiet_ ,” he commanded as a second finger joined the first. Two fingers worked faster than one, and my knees almost buckled with involuntary weakness.

The old me would have kicked him, shoved him, and escaped, for this reeked of ‘trap.’ He controlled me with the digits on his left hand, and he had muffled my ability to scream for help. There was no one here to save me anyway. The new me felt more free somehow for this particular trap, though. True to my word, though, I stayed silent, clamping down on his fingers and taking slow, shuddering breaths. Somehow, suppressing my volume only intensified the sensations, though, and before too long I felt myself slowly spiraling out of control again. How he had managed to do this to me three times in one day, I failed to comprehend.

When it was over, I sagged into him, completely exhausted. Even if I wanted to indulge him one more time, I no longer had the energy. My muscles were completely jelled.

“Clean enough, I think,” he said cheerily, as if he hadn’t just killed all of my motivation to do anything at all. I wondered, numbly, if that had been his plan all along. He opened the curtain and shut the water off, and I stepped out. My legs felt unsteady and about ready to tip over. I slid the towel off the rack and fluffed my hair.

He swiped his a few times with the towel and then wrapped it around his waist. Then he strode a little further down the hallway and entered one of the rooms. Dumbly, I followed him, my brain nearly completely shut down. He was sitting on the edge of his bed when I arrived. When he saw that I had followed him, he looked at me and waited.

I blinked, waking up just a little. “Um… so my… house… it’s kind of far away.” He just waited. “Can I just stay here?” I rushed out.

The smile that bloomed on his face was the most brilliant one yet, and it made my heart ache. I remembered that I had intended to tell him my story tonight. _Tomorrow_ , I vowed, climbing into his bed. _Tomorrow I’ll tell him for sure._ He motioned for me to scoot over, then dragged the blanket up to my shoulders and kissed my temple. He slid into the sheets next to me.

My eyes drifted shut. I felt his hand settle on my hip, as if reassuring himself that I was still there. It was utterly adorable, and I felt the increasingly familiar twinge as his hooks latched into my heart. I was falling, way too hard and way too fast, and he was there to catch me each and every time. My hand curled over my belly and sought his fingers instinctively.

He squeezed them affectionately, and I felt his smile upon my ear. “I’m glad you stayed,” he whispered. “Goodnight, Tenten.”

“’Night, Shisui,” I slurred, already half asleep.

* * *

 

I woke up to the scent of bacon. It was undeniably bacon. There was nothing in the world that smelled like bacon. I inhaled deeply and wanted to laugh. The man was honestly trying to seduce me with bacon? I extricated myself from tangled sheets, then remembered that my clothes were in the den with the futon, and I was shy enough this morning not to want to waltz around in my skin.

I glanced around his bedroom, trying to catch hints here and there of who he was, even if he said he didn’t really know himself. There was surprisingly little to go on, actually. No pictures, no decorations, no books. I wondered what he did with his spare time. As my eyes scanned the plain, unadorned room, I spied a pile of gently worn clothes and discovered one of his shirts. I usually sniffed my clothes to determine whether or not it was clean enough to wear. When I inhaled his, I was struck by his delectable scent. It wasn’t quite clean, but I was wearing it anyway. His torso was longer than mine, so it hung about halfway down my thighs. This would work, I thought.

When I pushed open the door to his bedroom, I was greeted by the pungent, miraculous smell of coffee. If bacon hadn’t lured me out, I would definitely have been ensnared by the coffee. The moan of pleasure escaped my lips before I could help myself.

Shisui turned around. He was back in his pants only, and my clothes had been neatly folded, even the ruined undershirt. In one hand he held the handle of a frying pan. In the other he held a spatula. “Morning,” he greeted me with a brief smile.

“Hi,” I responded, taking a seat at the table. In moments the mug of coffee was in front of me. I practically snatched it from his hand.

He chuckled. “I can appreciate a woman who likes her coffee,” he said conversationally.

“Oh, you have no idea,” I drawled, holding the cup of elixir aloft like a magical potion. Living alone was fine, and I regretted nothing. But without electricity, I couldn’t own a coffee pot, and I’d always harbored a fondness for it. This was a rare and welcome treat.

Several dishes were moved from the stove to the table. “I didn’t know what you liked,” he warned me, “so I made a little bit of everything."

I laughed to see it. There were omelettes, bacon, toast, sliced oranges and strawberries, fresh cheese, rice, butter, home made donuts, coffee, grapefruit juice, and chocolate milk. “Is all this for me?” I joked.

He merely shrugged and made himself a plate of bacon, omelettes, donuts, and bacon, then poured a glass of chocolate milk.

 _After breakfast_ , I reminded myself. _Then we’ll talk._


	14. Liar's Eyes

**Shisui**

* * *

 

When I had finished my breakfast—all things that I absolutely love: bacon, donuts, and chocolate milk—I stretched. It felt great; yesterday was perhaps the best day of my entire life, and today I felt rested and energetic and ready to take on the world, whatever it might bring. The slight woman who occupied the opposite chair was now the center of my universe. She was quietly finishing her own breakfast, and I took the opportunity to watch her while she was busy focusing on the food. 

Amazing, how another human being could make you feel, I marveled. Today, we were going to do whatever she wanted. I fervently hope that it would be related to yesterday.

“Shisui,” she started. Her tone had changed, in a negative way.

I leaned over the table, concerned. “Is it underdone?” I asked, meaning the breakfast. “The coffee’s too strong? Is my cooking that bad?” The words dribbled from my lips before I could stop them. No, everything was going _too_ perfectly. If anything went wrong now I would be lost and never found again. My heart stopped beating as I waited for her response. _Don’t say you’re leaving_ , I silently begged. _I can’t do it._

“I’m ready to tell you who I am,” she said quietly, staring into her coffee cup. “But… there are rules.”

I breathed an obvious sigh of relief and tried to look more relaxed. Somehow, though, the action only agitated her. Her eyebrows drew together and she glared at me from the rim of her mug. “Shisui, this is serious,” she asserted. “I’ve never told anyone.”

 _Back up, Shisui._ “No, I was just glad you weren’t leaving. I’m sorry. I’ll hear whatever you are ready to tell me and not a sentence more,” I affirmed, sitting up straighter in my chair. “And if you need it, there’s chocolate ice cream in the freezer. What are the rules?”

She smiled sadly, weighed down by her story. Well, soon enough, her story would be out, and she’d feel lighter. “You don’t get to interrupt me,” she said. “You don’t get to get up in the middle of it and step out, or leave. And, you don’t get to feel sorry for me.” Before I could say anything, she mowed over me on purpose. “And know that it’s okay if you can’t accept it for any reason. I’m just fine alone.”

To hear her say it that way cut me. I didn’t want her to be fine alone. I wanted her to need me just as badly as I needed her. I didn’t say anything, though. I merely took a deep breath, trying to brace for the worst, and said, “You have my word.”

She stood up, poured herself another cup of coffee, returned to her chair… then she took a deep breath, released a sigh, and seized my attention with those iron-gray eyes.

* * *

 

_She is four; old enough to see, hear, speak, and experience without being old enough to fully understand. She’s asleep. It’s nearly three o’clock in the morning, way past her bedtime. She sleeps in a room with no windows and no ventilation with nothing but a hand me down bath towel as a blanket in a box of newspaper for a bed. Her parents had always been poor. This run down apartment was all that they could afford, and it was discounted as a kindness. She didn’t know that… she couldn’t know that, not until she read the case file almost ten years later._

_Her tiny world with four walls that might as well have been made of the same stuff as her bed was modest, but it was filled with love. Her parents were lucky to have had a child at all. Her mother’s body was frail, but her eyes were bright with kindness and her will to survive was strong. Her father’s mind was frail, but his strength was the only thing that put food on the table and paid for her mother’s treatments._

_They lived that way since before she was born. Her father kissed her mother in the morning and walked out the door, off to some job here or there around the village, building homes finer than the one that they occupied. Her mother stayed at home due to her condition, but she put every ounce of energy that she had into raising her little girl, the child that should never have been possible. Her daughter of luck._

_They had no money, but they considered themselves rich. They had each other, and they had her, and really, what was wrong with that? Someday, when they had saved up enough money, they could send her off to a school with a good academic program, and she would never suffer the way that they had. All their dreams were on her, now._

_Until the Village was done expanding, and some of the homebuilders were laid off. Her father had no other skills. He couldn’t read or write and had no master craft. He wasn’t well known, or well liked, or well off. There was no door for him to put a toe into, and with him out of work, they wouldn’t be able to keep their meager holdings nor provide a future for their little girl._

_He did the only thing he thought he could do. He put all of his faith in luck, their daughter’s namesake. Every penny that he had saved up for her education, he bet on a fight. His fight. He knew he was strong, and he assumed he would win. It wasn’t out of arrogance, but desperation. His strength was the only thing he had left to work with; if he couldn’t rely on that, then_ what was there? _He signed his name in their book and gave them all of his pennies, and he stepped into the ring._

_His opponent was a Shinobi about ten to fifteen years his junior. He wasn’t wearing his forehead protector or standard issue flak jacket, but the easy, catlike grace of a ninja was unmistakable. He was small, though, and thin, and her father was sure he could still win. What else was he to do? Cry foul? Tell the authorities? Betting on fist fights was against local ordinance. To participate meant jail time, and for him, jail time meant death, and his wife and young daughter would follow him after._

_It didn’t last very long. He was strong, but he was slow and lacked the agility of the younger man. The Shinobi maneuvered around him like a dancer, and with a few well-placed jabs to medical pressure points, he passed out and lost his wager._

_She awoke when he slammed the squeaky front door shut, shattering the doorframe on its hinges; if he couldn’t beat the man, he could definitely defeat a door. It hung askew; there were pictures of it in the police report. He was angry, but it was a rage that welled up from the dark pit of despair that he had won for himself. There was nothing left. They would all starve to death anyway. He’d kill them himself before that happened._

_He grabbed the knife off of the table. Her mother had been using it to trim her nails earlier that day. He cornered his wife, apologizing. Her will to live was strong, but her body was too fragile. He restrained her far too easily, and though she swatted at him and tried to escape, her efforts were in vain._

_The girl in her box peeked out from the tattered edges of her towel blanket just in time to see the knife flash. The kitchen was turning red, but her mother made no move to clean it as she usually would. She was trying to defend herself, her thin, beautiful arms out before her like a scaffold, attempting to keep the larger party at bay. He merely needed to lean, and her spidery arms buckled under pressure, and with his body went the knife._

_Her mother coughed, begging to please spare the girl. The girl was lucky, and the girl was innocent, and maybe she would have a chance anyway. He silenced her, the tears pouring down his face, and apologized for what he had done, and what he was about to do._

_He walked slowly toward her, the knife hiding behind his back. She didn’t know to run; he was her father, after all, and he had never shown her anything but love. He softened his expression and spoke gently to her, telling her everything was going to be all right. They would all be going to be a better place than this one, a happier place where people weren’t sick and mommies and daddies could stay and play with their children instead of breaking their backs at work._

_She thought it sounded like a nice place, and she watched his face with trust. His mouth was smiling but his eyes didn’t. He blinked often. His tone belied his actions. She was young, but she would remember. His face would return to haunt her when she read the case file the week before she became a genin, and with his face came the start of the memories, too._

_He’d died with blades sticking out of his neck. Someone down the hall had heard the screams of her mother and the dutiful Shinobi on patrol in her neighborhood that night were alerted. The whole affair was neatly sewn up before breakfast._

* * *

 

“My name is Yuki Shibetsu,” she finished. “I gave myself the name Tenten when I was a child. I hadn’t known my name at the time, and so when people asked me my name, I just blurted something, and it became my name. Where I got it, I have no idea. I learned my birth name when I read the case file. I started to remember bits and pieces of that night as I grew older, but I asked for the case file right before I became a genin, to remind myself why I had done it.

“I had several principles that never wavered, though. One, be strong enough that a man cannot overpower me. My father was a strong man, and no amount of love or survival instinct had saved my mother. Being a woman puts me at a disadvantage. Two, don’t trust anyone. My mother’s husband, a man who loved her, had murdered her. If that had happened to her, it could happen to me, even if I was strong. These two principles have governed my life since before I could remember why.

“I lied to you during the war. The ANBU didn’t raise me, but they did put me in the fosters, and I did run away. That was part of the second principle. I implanted myself into the ninja academy to learn how to fight, and they let me stay. The school had been made aware of my situation, and they were willing to give me that chance.

“And I know what a face looks like when it’s lying, and when it is resigned to die, because when I saw my father’s face in that file, I remembered the expression it had made right before he meant to kill me. I’ve had a natural aversion to men, and to liars.”

She set down her empty mug and refused to meet my eyes. Instead, she started tying up her hair in those cute little buns. She walked over to where I had put her clothing and began dragging them on, her movements slow and deliberate. “What are you doing?” I asked curiously. I was trying to figure out where I had heard the name Shibetsu before.

“Leaving,” she replied curtly.

My chair squealed backward. “Why?” I asked, standing, my palms resting on the table.

“Isn’t it obvious? You’re the bane of my existence. The man who is stronger than me that I trust to hold my life in his hands. You’re the mirror of my father, Shisui. I have to go.”

My heart broke into a thousand tiny little pieces. I panicked and placed my body between her and the door, arms outstretched behind me as if I were holding up the earth. Her face transformed with irritation, the gray eyes reinforced with steel. Her lips thinned and she glared at me. There was no fear in her now. For no reason at all, I had become the enemy, and I was standing in her way. My breath came ragged. I didn’t know what to do. “Tenten,” I whispered brokenly. “Don’t do this to me.”

“Move, Shisui,” she growled.

I took a deep breath and, miraculously, found my backbone. I frowned and stood up straighter. “No.”

She rolled her eyes and planted her feet. “I said ‘ _move_ ,’” she repeated through clenched teeth.

“And I said ‘over my dead body,’” I growled.

She tossed her head, brown bangs falling right back over her headband. “You didn’t actually say that,” she corrected me.

“I know,” I retorted, “but I’m saying it now.”

“You make no sense,” she scoffed.

I leveled her with a stare. She understood my meaning. _No,_ you _make no sense._

“Shisui,” she said more softly.

Years of being blind had made me sensitive to the tone. There was _just enough_ of an inflection there to indicate defeat. Her fighting spirit was retreating, backing down before me. It had been a temporary boost of dominance, just enough to have gotten her out of my house, and she was running out of it right now. I waited, my heart thudding in my chest, pounding, filled with hope. “Tenten,” I said gently, mimicking her.

“Please, you have to let me go,” she begged, her forehead wrinkling. She was two deep breaths away from crying, I could tell.

I wasn’t going to let her do it alone. “I disagree,” I said, letting my hands fall to my sides. I took one step forward.

Her feet shifted and she chewed her lip. Her arms wrapped around herself, that unconscious motion that was to protect the _self_ from the _other_. That was one breath down.

I took one more step forward, prepared to catch her when she fell.

“ _Please_.” Her voice broke, and she inhaled sharply. “You… c-can’t…” The air in her lungs receded, and with it came a torrent of tears.

I crossed the remaining space between us and gathered her into my chest. She sobbed, all the rest of her pain flooding out of that dark place she hid within. I’ve never heard a woman howl like that in my lifetime, and if I could help it, I never would again. I eased us both to the floor, and she curled up, knees to her chest, leaning up against me. I petted her hair just to soothe her, reminding her that I was there. “It’s going to be okay, Tenten,” I said gently. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I knew it to be true. I had doubted myself before, but after hearing her story, I was certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I would do anything to keep her safe.

Murder, even.

I had finally remembered where I had heard the name Shibetsu. Itachi and I had been meeting that night, in our conspiratorial years between thinking we could save the world and having to sacrifice everything we held dear to do it. I was ten. He and I often met at night, after our parents believed us to be asleep, so that we could keep our many secrets.

We’d heard the mother screaming to protect the child, shared a look of emergency, and simply acted. When we arrived in the apartment, Itachi had thought, in that fraction of a second, that the man in there had been a bystander who had responded to the screams as we had. There was blood everywhere, but no frantic movements, as if the battle were already finished. It was I who had seen the box and the child with the trusting eyes, and I had a crystal clear moment where I _knew_ that he meant her harm. My hands had just _moved_ of their own accord. That hot spike of panic had ruled my motions, the urge to protect indescribable and insistent.

I wasn’t sure when I had mastered throwing kunai; learning them had been as hard as shuriken. I didn’t even remember throwing them. When the man fell, Itachi saw the knife, cursed himself for being an idiot, congratulated me, and dragged me from the scene immediately, all in moments. We were children, still, and genin. We didn’t want the attention, and the questions. We didn’t discuss what had happened, and I had understood that to mean that we were going to pretend that it hadn’t. Murder in the Village Hidden in the Leaves? It was unheard of. Unthinkable. Anathema.

I guess, over time, it had just kind of faded from my memory. It made sense that the reports had embellished the stories to give credit to the mysterious Shinobi who had killed Tenten's father. I would never tell her that I was there… but I was there. I was there for her then, and now, and always would be.


	15. Trust Exercise

** Tenten **

* * *

 

That’s it. It was all out in the open. I had told him about my real parents and who I was. I thought he wouldn’t want anything to do with me, and then he’d flat out refused to let me leave his house. I was angry; angry at my father, for what he had done; angry at myself for stepping into every one of Shisui’s baited traps; angry at Shisui, for being so damn…  _Shisui_ .

And I was a woman, and anger equals tears. I hadn’t had time to escape before they burst from my treacherous eyes, and they wouldn’t stop this time. I was tired, in every way. Physically, from bonding with Shisui; mentally, from having to bend my thoughts around what was going on with me right now and how much was left to hide. I was just… done. He held me as a cried, and I wasn’t even ashamed of it anymore. I hid inside his safety, and for a wonder, actually felt safe.

“It’s going to be okay, Tenten,” he told me. “I’m not going to hurt you. You can be safe here, and if anyone tries to touch you, I’ll help you kill them myself. It will be fun,” he ended cheerfully.

I tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a wheeze. “Why can’t you just let me go?” I wondered aloud.

“I would have thought we’d made that pretty obvious by now,” he said into my hair.

I didn’t poke into that any further because I already knew what he’d say and I wasn’t ready to hear it.

My mind wandered back to the ugly memories I had shared. I tried not to think about it too often. If I kept something like that forefront in my thoughts, I ended up feeling depressed the majority of the time. I could still see his lying, dying face in my memory.  “What’s it like?” I beseeched my new lover. “Being blind, I mean?” I had accidentally trampled on the topic before and felt instantly rude, but he didn’t seem too perturbed by the topic. In fact, he was open and forthcoming about his former handicap, and I was genuinely curious.

Amusement tinged his voice when he spoke. “It’s kind of hard to explain, but if you’re interested, I think I can show you.”

I perked up in his embrace. Learning new things always intrigued me. “You can?”

“Sure.” He held me at arms length and made eye contact. “Do you trust me?”

Did I? I supposed that that was the million-dollar question. If I didn’t, then this whole charade was just that: a charade. I might as well pack up and go home and never return. If I did…? Well. That changed everything.

The memories we’d so far made together whizzed through my mind’s eye. He had fixed my ankle when he’d had no reason to. He had lied to me, even if I now understood why. He had kissed me without permission or encouragement. He had cornered, trapped, and grabbed at me, though it seemed he had learned from it. I’d asked him to leave me alone, and he had.

And then yesterday happened. “I think so,” I told him carefully.

He grabbed a kitchen towel and went to the front door. As he stood in its doorway and looked back at me, I was struck by how much about him I was actually starting to like. He was still shirtless, and I was definitely starting to like seeing him that way. That ready, easy smile seemed sincere, and I was actually a little envious at how natural it seemed upon his face. The missing eye actually gave him some character and mystery, and his past only served to amplify that. He’d actually sacrificed himself in service of his friend, and by extension his Village.

I pondered how much courage it took to _choose_ blindness for the good of a friend. He didn’t seem at all damaged by that decision, emotionally or otherwise.

“Coming?” he asked me, cocking his head slightly to one side.

I followed him out.

He strode out to the center of his front yard and waited as I approached. Then, he pointed to a spot in front of him. “Stand there,” he ordered, “and turn away from me.”

I did as he asked. The towel fluttered as he whipped it out in front of us both, and then he carefully tied it around my head, covering my eyes. I understood; he was blindfolding me to hinder my eyes. I wondered if he was planning anything else with the blindfold. I hoped that he wouldn’t. It was going to be hard enough to leave without him reminding me why I had stayed in the first place.

“Shhh,” he commanded softly. “Your breathing is too loud.”

I stilled and listened to my breathing. I frowned. “It is not,” I retorted, heart fluttering.

He didn’t argue with me, but he didn’t accept my answer, either. “In a world without eyes,” he whispered into my ear, “your other senses are all that you have. Most important is sound. Now hush… as quietly as you can be. Can you hear my breathing?”

His voice and his breath in my ear made me shiver. I strained my ears, but he was far too quiet for me to hear. “No,” I told him.

“Keep trying,” he whispered.

I waited. I did try to slow and quiet my breathing, parting my lips slightly to cut down on the breezy sounds that fogged up my senses when I breathed through my nose. It helped. I didn’t move a muscle. Then, after a few minutes, I _did_ hear the steady breathing of the man behind me. “I hear it,” I told him proudly.

“Good,” he whispered. He sounded as if he was smiling, as he often did. “That’s how I made it work. When I was in the ANBU Black Ops, there were dozens of missions that we performed in the cover of total darkness. A basic understanding of how to move without being detected while also aware of your surroundings was essential. When I lost my eyes, I merely had no choice but to improve upon that. Keep concentrating.”

I nodded to show that I understood, trying not to break the silence again. The quieter I was, the more I heard. Besides the obvious—birds tweeting, Shisui’s breathing, and the shivering of leaves in the breeze—I could hear the sound of a beetle traveling through the grass near my feet, the far off conversation of two men somewhere in the Village nearby, and the slow shuffling of a creature in the trees behind Shisui’s house. I was blown away by how much was actually going on in an environment that I had previously considered a quiet one. With my ears tuned into the heartbeat of the earth, it was almost kind of noisy. “This is kind of amazing,” I murmured, more for myself than for him.

“Mm hmm,” he responded, seemingly distracted. I felt his fingers ghost over my arms, my nerve endings sizzling to life at his touch, and my heart sped up. He tsked. “That’s no good,” he breathed into my ear. “I could hear that heartbeat from miles away. Try again.”

I felt like smacking him about the face and ears. He was doing this on purpose, the cruel bastard. “What’s the point of _this_?” I demanded, trying to calm myself down.

“Training, of course,” he slurred into my neck.

I felt the line of his nose brush against my jugular, and my breath caught in my throat. “This isn’t training,” I countered. “It’s harassment.”

He chuckled. “A moment ago you said you could hear me breathing. Is that still the case?”

“You know it isn’t,” I grumbled. All I could hear was my heart pounding, and my breath escaping in quickening pants.

“Then you’re doing it wrong,” he said simply. “A Shinobi must never show emotion,” he lectured. “You’re in a situation that, were you truly blind, you’d be in danger. Your breathing and your heart rate are interfering with your ability to hear and therefore sense an enemy.” Then, abruptly, his voice hardened. “So control them. You wanted to know, didn’t you?” He was giving me an out, I realized, telling me that if I wanted to quit, I could.

But I didn’t want to risk his disappointment, I found.

I bit my lip and tried to do as I was told. I was moderately annoyed that he’d turned my innocent question into a training exercise, and then chose to torture me with it. But then again, what he was saying made sense, and my practicality had already developed scenes in my head where this kind of training might be useful. What if I had been put into a situation where my eyes were compromised? Kakashi’s team had once been the victims of a Hidden Mist jutsu that made it impossible to see, placed into an arena of battle in which their insane and violent opponent had trained constantly. Ash, fog, and dust could do the same thing. And, although I hoped it never came to pass, there might come a time when my own eyes could be damaged, and then where would I be? “Yes,” I reaffirmed. “I do wish to know.”

I felt his smirk against my neck. “Good. Try again.”

I did my best to ignore him as his hands roamed my body, pressing my hips back against his own. His heat radiated through my clothes. I did manage to keep my breathing in check, just barely, but the simple act of restraining myself was exhilarating, and with his suffocating presence and the obvious arousal pressed into me from behind, it was impossible to focus completely.

“You’re not concentrating,” he accused, his tone flat.

And then I felt my hackles rise. How could he stand there like that, all cool and collected, while my blood boiled with desire? It definitely wasn’t fair. Was he simply not affected, or was his self-control really _that_ good?

I gave up.

“You know,” I said softly, “I always was a disappointment as a student.” My words unbalanced him, and his breathing hitched. I took advantage of the moment and grabbed his wrists, lifting his paws off of me. Then, I turned within his arms and seized his lips with my own, guiding his hands toward my back, and I let them go.

His hands immediately dug into my buttocks roughly, yanking me even closer. I nipped his lip and pressed against him. My body was on fire, and the source of the flames was an agony between my legs. Until I quenched the ache, the lesson was over. All the other sounds of the universe were drowned out by the pounding of my heart and his breath in my ear. This close, I could feel his heart pounding, against my chest and I realized that he must have been just as needy as I was the whole time. Outwardly, he might have been placid, but inwardly he was a raging storm.

Never before had I ever wanted anything so badly as I had wanted him in that moment. I slid my hands down his back, feeling more enlivened by the scorching heat of his skin, and dove beneath the waistline of his pants. Ever inch of him was toned muscle, firm and unyielding yet wrapped in silk. I wanted. Oh, God, I _wanted_. Every searing hot inch of him belonged to _me_ , and I would have it _right now_. 

With one hand he sped through my buttons with the delicacy of a jeweler and my blouse fell free. The moment my skin was bare, he seized one of my breasts in his hands and squeezed. The action lanced through my being and I groaned aloud.

The sound I’d made turned him into an animal. He snarled and used his other hand to grip my chin, hooking a thumb beneath my jaw and clawing his fingers into my scalp. It hurt, but in a good way. And then he pushed, and my back hit a tree. It knocked the breath out of my lungs, but I didn’t need air anyway. The same instant, he was upon me, and my mouth was no longer used for breathing.

My patience was tenuous before, but the ache that was already building in my core flayed the rest of it. I yanked the band of his pants down. His throat rumbled and his hands flew. My pants came off next, pooling at my feet, and then he wrenched my thighs up into the air and lifted me. The bark scraped my back, but the pain took my breath away in much the same way as the desire, somehow fusing with the pleasure to sharpen and intensify all sensation. My pulse hammered away, impatiently sounding a drum roll for the moment that would come next.

He drew me away from the tree, ever so slightly, and my back began to slide the opposite direction, probably drawing blood. I hissed and my eyes rolled beneath my blindfold, my body unable to decide which feeling was winning, the pleasure or the pain. Before I made up my mind, my hips dropped down over his cock and locked in place. I shouted out, unable to help myself, not even caring if the whole world heard.

He moaned as well, buried into my body as far as he could go. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and held on, locking my ankles behind him.

And then he began to move, and the world shattered in explosions of light in my tiny world of darkness. “Dear _God_ , Shisui!” I cried out. Behind me was the tree, merciless and punishing, and before me was my cruel tutor, all passionate intensity and singular purpose. _Amazing_ , I thought from a distant plane as the slow build he had started with the blindfold peaked and tipped and crashed upon my pitiful soul in record time. The force of my orgasm had me screaming, holding onto his shoulders and hips for dear life, lest my spirit leave my body and dance into the heavens, giggling the whole way.

As I crashed, he peaked, roaring out his release to the world, too, leaving me to feel bereft without him inside me.

We sank to the grass together, tangled and out of breath. He slipped the blindfold off and stared at me with an expression akin to wonder, panting. “Sorry,” he breathed. “I actually hadn’t planned that.”

I shook my head to dismiss the notion and shrugged. “Well,” I told him laughing. “Either you’re a lousy teacher… or a _really_ good one. Either way, I think you’re going to need to repeat that lesson. Pretty sure I missed the entire point of the exercise.”


	16. Interruptors

**Shisui**

* * *

 

I hadn’t planned that. When we walked outside with the towel in hand, I was really only planning on doing exactly as she asked. I was even trying to talk myself into letting her go home like she intended. And then that had happened, and there was no way I could do it now.

So I smiled and replaced the blindfold as she hastily rearranged her clothes, and we tried again. This time, I didn’t distract her as I had before, and I watched her as she intimated herself with her other senses: smell, touch, and sound (because taste, in this case, was hardly necessary, and thinking about it made me want to kiss her again). I knew firsthand how quiet and individual an activity it was, so I kissed her and wished her well and returned inside. I watched her from the window so as not to disturb her. Her head slowly rolled from side to side, testing sounds from different angles, trying to catch any scent that she might.

I was proud of her, in every way. I felt that somehow I might be responsible for boosting her confidence because surely she wouldn’t have initiated sex otherwise. She looked completely in her element now, immersed in some extracurricular Shinobi training. I knew, given time, that she would eventually be able to master weaponry in this fashion, too. She was already the top name in the rosters for mastery of ninja tools. This would only enhance her reputation.

As she trained, now working slowly through taijutsu forms, I plotted a way to keep her here. I’d had enough of hearing about how she needed to leave and couldn’t trust anyone. I needed her to trust me. She had brought me the happiest moments of my life, now, and I could not simply let her go. To do so would place me into a darker place than I’ve ever been before. That was saying a lot… there was a good seven years in there where my world was lived in nothing but darkness.

Unfortunately, I had little experience on the subject of manipulating women into doing what you wanted them to. Fortunately, I had a lot of time to think about it.

When she finally came back in, she looked happy and only a little bit tired. “Thank you, Shisui, for both of your lessons,” she told me happily. “I really am going to go now—“ my heart sank “—but I’m not going to stay gone.”

Faith restored! 

She continued. “By now my teammates are probably starting to wonder where I am. We usually do at least something related to training every day. It’s one of Guy sensei’s rules, and he’s pretty strict in that respect. I’ll tell them—kind of—what’s been going on, and they’ll understand. But,” she said with a shrug, “I am still a Shinobi of Team Guy, and they’re the only family I’ve got.”

I took a deep breath and released it. She made perfect sense. I could be selfish, but I didn’t have to be quite so possessive. Her teammates had been in her life far longer than I had. “Okay,” I relented. “I suppose that’s fair. At least let me walk you into town, then. I’m going to meet up with a friend.” 

“Okay.”

We said our goodbyes where the path forked. One way led to where she knew her teammates would be, and the other led to Shikamaru’s house, where I knew that Itachi would be. She promised me that she would be back soon, but couldn’t give me a clue as to when. I told myself that it was okay. I felt, even if she didn’t say it, that she was beginning to care for me. If she still wanted to run, she was doing a poor job of it. She had already talked herself out of it twice.

Besides… I had sacrificed my life for Itachi, in a way, and in return he had saved my life. Tenten had become important to me, but that didn’t change the fact that Itachi and I had some major history. Even if he could forgive me for ignoring him for a while, I doubted I could forgive myself. It was good, I decided, to remind yourself what you were living for, once in a while.

“Yo, Itachi!” I greeted him as I walked up. As I suspected, he was on Shikamaru’s covered porch, playing Shogi.

“Good afternoon, Shisui,” he mumbled over his hand. He and Shikamaru were apparently embroiled in a pretty intense match of Shogi. I glanced over his shoulder. The board was pretty locked up. Both kings were pretty well protected and neither one of them seemed to have the edge on breaking the defenses. That was surprising; Shikamaru’s Shogi prowess was nigh unto mythical. I knew firsthand how brilliant Itachi was, but he himself had said that he wasn’t very good.

While Itachi stared at the board, Shikamaru rested his elbows and his knees and looked at me. He smirked. “So, Shisui. What’s new?”

I yawned and sat down on the floor between them. “Nothing much,” I shrugged. “Thought I’d see if you guys were busy today.”

Itachi didn’t look up or even blink. He was absolutely fixated on the scene before him. I looked at Shikamaru and raised an eyebrow. He grinned. “He’s pretty smart, but he still doesn’t think as quickly as I do. He’s trying to plan ahead, but he has to play out the full scenario before he can decide.” He yawned loudly. “He’ll give up soon enough. He can see that I’ve won.”

“Fuck you,” Itachi snarled. He nibbled on his fingernails and kept his eye trained on the board.

 _What did he just say?_ I stared at him, sure my new eye was going to fall right out of my head. Itachi swearing was like seeing a unicorn; you’d better take a picture because it was never happening again. I was honestly speechless.

Shikamaru noticed my expression and laughed. “Yeah, his language steadily grows more foul. I don’t think he likes losing much.”

“I will seriously kill you if you don’t stop talking,” he said, too softly. I recognized that tone. It was the tone he took with an enemy right before he silently dispatched them from their mortal coil. That was the tone of my friend Itachi the clan killer.

But Shikamaru shook his head and spoke behind his hand conspiratorially. “He’s not serious,” he insisted. 

“I am,” Itachi said. His hand extended and plucked up a tile. “I’ve got this. Watch and learn,” he told Shikamaru, lips curving in the semblance of a smile and eyes narrowed dangerously. He placed a Silver upon a new space on the board with a loudly exaggerated _tap_.

Shikamaru’s lazy smile slowly grew, and he leaned into the board. “Game on.” He answered with a knight drop. Every few seconds, one of them moved a piece until Itachi had Shikamaru’s king cornered and bared to assault. “No way!” he exclaimed with dismay. “Dammit.”

Itachi leaned back with a satisfied smile. “What’s the record now?”

“23 for you, 26 for me,” Shikamaru grumbled unhappily.

“I’m catching up to you,” he said with smug satisfaction.

“That’s… what? Four in a row now?”

Itachi nodded, pleased as punch. “Okay, Shisui,” he said, turning to me. “What would you like to do? Training? Food? We could try that new bar? Or something else?”

Shikamaru spluttered, “What? You can’t just quit while you’re ahead! I demand a rematch!”

“Come with us,” I invited, holding out my hand as I stood.

He accepted my hand and hauled himself up. “Thanks, but I promised my mom I’d cook tonight. I haven’t even gone out to buy the things that I need yet, and Ino and Chouji are coming over, too.”

“No problem. I didn’t want you to come anyway,” I told him jokingly.

He smirked and bade us farewell.

It was a nice day to be out of the house, even if that meant that I wasn’t in bed with Tenten all day. Lately the weather had been almost too perfect. Not one day of sunshine should be wasted. I’d spent a good few days lazing around on my lawn and soaking up the sunshine. Some days I felt like stretching out long unused muscles and practicing some forms, but most days I just felt like reaping the peace I’d lost my eyes for. It helped me to put it all in perspective. 

“So I was thinking coffee,” I mentioned conversationally as we walked through the streets of Konoha. It was odd to do that; I hadn’t lived here in almost ten years, and no one seemed to take notice.

It must be even stranger for Itachi; he had spent most of the past decade as one of the most wanted criminals in Leaf History. To casually stroll up and down the streets on the same pathways as frolicking children and blissfully bored civilians must feel completely out of character. I glanced up at his face just to guess at his thoughts.

I was not wrong.

Itachi was the epitome of inner turmoil. I saw it in the slightly downturned corners of his mouth and the crease in his brow. He was like a lion among house cats; prowling and feeling too big and too dangerous to fit in.

“Coffee sounds fine,” he said, his voice belying his facial expression. Then again, probably no one could read his expression. I had the advantage of having known him for so long as to see without being able to see it. Though I had hoped that Itachi had left his self-destructive thought pattern behind, I could see now that my hopes had been smoke. If something didn’t change for my friend soon, there might be no future for him.

We walked the rest of the way to the café in uncomfortable silence. I found us a table and ordered a pot of coffee brought, and then I breached the two topics that were forefront in my mind: Tenten, and whatever problem he was internalizing. “So, I have something to tell you.”

“What does it feel like?” he asked, surprising me as he evaded my question. His expression was flat, almost lifeless.

I felt my blood run cold. It was something about the way he had asked it that startled me, as if the answer I gave him now was the difference between life and death. “Excuse me?” I prompted, having no indication of where he was going with this.

“Peace,” he replied simply. “I’ve seen you, and I see you now. You’re happy. You’ve always been happy. Even when the world was going to shit around you, even when you knew I had to kill you, even when you tried to kill yourself both times, you have that unshakable, untouchable humor. Your peace. Peace…” he trailed off, staring into his coffee cup. What he saw in it, I don’t know. “Peace is killing me.”

I swallowed a mouthful of coffee. It tasted like ashes. I knew he spoke true; I knew that look in his eye. Or, rather, I had never seen it before on his face, but its appearance now meant only one thing: Itachi was giving up. Was either really close to it or had already. The sight of it in his eye made me feel ill. We’d been best friends since childhood, and he was the only thing close to a real family I had left. Imagining a world without him in it was too hard to do, which only meant that I could not accept it.

Could not, and would not. If I had to shut him up inside of my house until he saw sense and left out Tenten for months, I would do it. I had sacrificed my life for him once, and dedicated my whole purpose to his survival. There was no reason to give it up now, especially not when we had achieved everything we had worked for. “Itachi…” I began, my voice sounding pathetic even to me.

“You don’t have to say it, Shisui. I know. I would save you the pain if I only knew how.” He went quiet for a while.

The silence was more painful than his words. “What about Sasuke?” I asked, staring at my coffee. Flavors didn’t seem to matter anymore.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. He changed, I changed… we sit in a room together for a while with nothing to say. I killed our family, and he killed me, and anything that we can say to each other now just seems to matter less than it might have before.” He stopped, drained his entire cup of coffee, and pushed the empty mug to the edge of the table, out of the way. “I can’t stand the quiet. It’s deafening. I can’t stand the boring day-to-day when there’s nothing in it. I’m a Shinobi, Shisui. And now I have no more purpose.”

I found I had no answer for him. I had my purpose, but my reason for living wouldn’t help him. He had been dead. There had been a point when he had accepted his fate and gone willingly toward it. He’d made peace with his life and probably found solace in the solitude of death.

And I had robbed that from him. I felt guilty. “I’m sorry,” I told him, my eyes burning with unshed tears.

“Don’t be,” he said, looking away. “You’ve given me the best gifts that you could have, and although it doesn’t seem like it, I truly appreciate it.” He stood from his chair, the scuffle against the floor grating my ears.

My head was spinning. This couldn’t be happening. It was like the worst nightmare I had ever had. Just when everything starts to go right, insert major character death here. “Please, don’t do this,” I begged. “Tenten and I—“

“Will be very happy, I’m sure,” he interrupted. “As you both very well deserve.” His face softened. “Farewell my friend.”

I stood to go after him, but just as I did, the door to the café burst open and a pair of chunin pushed their way in. “Itachi Uchiha, Shisui Uchiha,” the first greeted breathlessly with bare nods of the head. Whatever had brought him here had been important.

We both nodded in return. To speak would delay the message.

“You both have orders to meet with the Hokage immediately. We’re to escort you there ourselves.”

I don’t know why, but I had an awful feeling about this.


	17. Lessons, New and Old

**Tenten**

* * *

 

My emotions went through the wringer the further I got away from Shisui’s house. The first thing I felt was regret, for having left him behind. Next came relief; I enjoyed being near him, I found, but without him around, I didn’t have to worry about what I was saying or doing or how he affected me. After that came a sharp and insistent thrill; our last couple of days together had been extraordinarily fun and exciting, and already I couldn’t wait to see him again. And then, when I had indulged every last sensation, I settled on peace and determination.

That was odd, for me. Peace was a difficult thing for me to find in a world whose sole focus was war. All my life I had felt weak and insignificant, and my immediate goal had always been to get stronger. Indulging in relationships had always made me feel as if doing so lashed me down with a weakness. The man I was seeing could most easily kill me, and my feelings for him would cloud my judgment. It was interesting to discover that my newly formed relationship—if you could call it that—with Shisui had only made me stronger. For some reason, my presence, my closeness, and my actions turned him on. The knowledge of that was a powerful thing, and it made me feel beautiful, sexy, and strong. There was very little standing in between me and the world, now.

With that extra pep in my stride, I made my way to where I knew my teammates would be. Another thing that Shisui had taught me was that I needed to work on my weaknesses more. It was one thing to practice something that you knew you were good at, but we hardly ever spent time on unfavorable scenarios, such as what would happen when your eyes were incapacitated. I was thankful for that; perhaps his training would one day save my life, or that of someone close to me.

Of course, thinking of his training methods made my face hot, and my feet almost disobeyed me and turned me right around. I think, perhaps, the only thing that stopped me was knowing that Shisui wasn’t at home anyway, and I had no idea where to find him right this second.

Lee and Guy-sensei were doing one-handed push ups. Why was I not surprised? “Good afternoon, Lee, Guy-sensei,” I said pleasantly.

They never paused in their exercise. Guy and Lee took their training very seriously. It was one of the quirks that I both loved and hated about them both. On the one hand, their constant pressure to exceed expectations had made me stronger over the years. On the other hand, I was dog-tired most days I spent with them. They were often a little… over the top. “Tenten, my youthful flower,” Guy greeted between breaths. “We’re at 889 on our way to 1000. If you work fast, you might be able to catch up.”

“What?!” I yelped. Yeah, right, like I could do 1000 one-handed pushups in the time it took them to do 111. They hadn’t changed at all. It was comforting, though, knowing that as turbulent as my life had gotten lately, some things remained the same.

“Tenten,” Lee barked. “If you don’t start now, you might not make it!”

I sighed and sank to the ground beside him. Of course Lee would think I could make it in time, as if 1000 pushups would just take a quick minute. I stretched out, clasped my right hand behind my back, and went to work.

“892, 893, 894…” Lee ground out, counting with each dip.

“13, 14, 15…” I echoed, moving much faster with untapped—well, mostly untapped, I thought with another blush—energy reserves. As often happened when I was around these two, I felt a surge of insanity and challenged myself to actually catch up with them as they continued. “…thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two…” All of my thoughts and distractions were suspended as I threw all of my energies into showing up the two craziest Shinobi in Konoha.

I surprised myself by coming a lot closer than I thought I could. I’d made it to 524 before they made it to 1000. Lee and Guy stood together and watched me for a moment, arms crossed, expressions severe. I saw no reason to quit, so I went ahead and kept doing pushups, panting from exertion and grunting with efforts that were steadily getting more challenging. At about this point every time, I asked myself if it was even possible to do 1000 one-handed pushups, and at the end of it every time, I found that it _was_ possible… just barely. My arms were always numb and mushy when I was finished, but I always felt strong the next day.

I had Lee and Guy to thank for a lot of things. Being my only family was just another thing.

“Tenten,” Guy began, his voice strong but low. “You have not been training with us in too long.”

“I’m… sorry,” I gritted out, struggling to keep going.

“There is nothing to be sorry for except for the scream of unused muscles,” he dismissed. He paused. “All I want to know is if you’re okay.”

The question shouldn’t have surprised me. Guy had always cared about all three of us. It surprised me anyway, as questions of the kind usually did. When was I going to stop being thrown off by people giving a damn about my well-being? I didn’t know quite what to tell him, though.

“Tenten,” Lee said from beside Guy. “I know how you felt about Neji.” His tone was sympathetic and full of understanding.

I bit my lip. We hadn’t all talked about Neji, but the quiet space on the grass where Neji would be doing pushups next to me was loud.

_687, 688, 689…_

“Tenten, you can talk to us,” Guy went on. “We knew him as well as you did.”

“No, you didn’t,” I snapped, my voice bitter. I wanted it back as soon as it left my mouth. I wasn’t ready to give up on my pushups, but part of me wanted to. I didn’t realize I was still angry about Neji until they brought him up. My good mood fled entirely. They didn’t say anything else, though. They just waited. “Neji was…”

“Disciplined?” Lee offered.

“Strong?” Guy added.

“Amazing.”

“Protective.”

“Impressive.”

“Determined.”

“Lonely.”

“Sad.”

I crashed onto my knees and elbows at 703. _Dammit_. I couldn’t stop the tears, or the way my heart constricted from the pain. I hadn’t loved him as much as I thought that I had, but I _had_ loved him nonetheless. They _had_ known him, just as well as I had, just as they had said. “You knew…” I whispered, my voice broken.

“Of course we did,” Guy said, his voice choked with emotion, too. He knelt next to me, placing a consoling hand upon my shoulder. “We are all the same. A lonely soul recognizes another, it is said. I requested each and every one of you for my team.”

My head snapped up at the admission, and I looked him in the eyes. Was it true? “You… requested me?” No one had ever wanted me. That was one of my grounding points.

He nodded. “Mm-hmm.” He waved a hand to indicate Lee, his golden child, standing tall, tears streaming from his eyes. “Lee was labeled a failure for his lack of ninjutsu and genjutsu. Neji was told never to use his clan’s secret techniques on pain of death, dooming him to a life of subpar personhood, bitterness, and loneliness.”

He didn’t say why I was chosen. “Why me?” I asked, my tears matching theirs.

He leaned in closer and lowered his voice even more. “Tenten… I think we both know the answer to that.”

I gasped. So Guy-sensei had known about my past, this whole time? And he had chosen me as his student? This changed everything I had believed up until that point. My heart lurched, filled with love and belonging for this man who had taken me under his wing. Goofy-looking, over the top and weird he might be, but Guy might as well have been my father, or at least the one I should have had. I sobbed into his shoulder, and he gently held me. “Why?” I asked.

He was silent for a moment. “All of us were lonely and in need of a family,” he told me. “Even me.”

Lee joined us, making it a group hug. He leaned his head on my shoulder and rubbed my shoulders. “We all miss him, Tenten, but we’ll be okay.”

I loved them. With them at my back, I had never felt so safe. And if they knew about my past, there wasn’t any reason to hide anymore. Guy had apparently known the whole time. “There’s something I should tell you.”

“It’s about that guy, isn’t it?” Lee asked. “The one who kissed you?” He didn’t sound jealous or worried, just curious.

“Yeah,” I confirmed, breaking free from the hug. “So, if you know everything about my past… with my parents…?” They both nodded. “Then you can probably understand that I’ve had a difficult time being close to anyone.” They nodded again. “Shisui and I are… friends now. He actually makes me feel pretty good about myself.” I managed a smile and waited for the outrage.

Instead what I got was another more violent hug. “Oh, Tenten, that’s great news!” Guy exclaimed, tears redoubling. My sensei really was a total weirdo. “Your youth can overflow with the bright sparks of romance!”

Lee was apparently in agreement, though of a less intense nature. “I am glad you are happy, Tenten,” he said, his expression serious. “He seems to be strong and intelligent, like you. If he is trustworthy and capable of protecting you, then he is fine by me.”

I felt the smile growing on my face. They really were like family. Lee was trying to be the protective brother, and Guy… well he wasn’t quite acting like a father would, but he was happy for me, so I wasn’t going to complain.

Their intense attentions were making me a little comfortable though, and I hadn’t told them just to give them news. I was here for training, after all. “Well, I don’t know if you knew this, but he used to be blind.” I scrubbed the tears from my eyes. 

“Right!” Lee affirmed.

“He has been teaching me how critically important it is to fight when you are hindered,” I continued. “So he put me in a blindfold—“ I struggled, hard, to tell the story without getting caught up in the whirlwind of romantic feelings that flared up every time I thought about that time, “—and taught me how to tune into my other senses.” They were leaning in, listening to my every word, and Lee was even taking notes. Training was a way of life for these two. Anything new—especially if insanely difficult—was worth trying. “I think, with enough practice, I can throw my weapons while blind and still hit a target. So, do you mind if we practice?”

By the time I had finished my narrative, they had each procured a blindfold and Guy handed one to me. “An excellent idea,” Guy exclaimed. “Teach us what Shisui taught you and we’ll go from there.”

Me, playing teacher? “Um… okay,” I said hesitantly. I tied the blindfold around my head and stood a distance away. Space was necessary. “You just need to quiet your own body. Breathe more quietly, don’t move, slow your heartbeat and try not to be too excited.” I heard them take deep breaths to calm themselves, and after a few moments, I continued. “Now use your other senses: touch, smell, sound… and tune into your surroundings. Shisui was able to walk around unimpeded while blind, and can even fight. He said he practiced every day and often.”

“Got it,” Lee asserted.

An hour or so later, none of us had moved. That was fine by me. I was glad to have a chance to practice without feeling Shisui’s eye on me. Being around Guy and Lee kept me focused. The two were crazier and more dedicated than I could ever be, and it made me that much more determined to make them proud of me. If I were the first to quit, I’d be ashamed. I was so familiar with the quiet, comfortable time in their presence that I felt completely at ease.

But, it was time. I was ready for some real practice. I took a deep breath. “Lee?” I prompted, my voice hoarse. It had been a long time since I’d spoken at all, and my voice was unused to speaking.

“Yes, Tenten,” he responded, his voice equally cracked from disuse.

“I’d like for you to attack me. I need to see if my practice is paying off.”

I heard the snap of a salute and he stood, brushing himself off. “Yes, Tenten. Though, if you’re okay with it, I’d like to also keep my blindfold on, to see if I am getting any better as well.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

I heard the slow, graceful approach of his footsteps. Like a cat in the shadows, he walked near me. He didn’t speak, trying to sneak up on me. I did hear the gentle rise and fall of his breath, though, and the brush of the grass against his shoes.

When he was closer, I heard the quick shuffle of his feet as he sought to make an attack, and then felt rather than hear or saw the attempted assault. There was a tingle in the air, like the feeling of someone watching you, as his kick sought to knock me off my feet. I sensed and blocked his attack, though, and tried to counter with one of my own. He somehow sensed me, too, though, and quickly retreated a few steps back to regroup. “Good block,” he praised.

“Nice try,” I returned. “I barely sensed it in time.”

Our voices went quiet again, and I tuned in. I felt a shadow creep over my skin, and realized almost too late that he had leapt over me. His descent upon the grass behind me was so light that I almost believed that I had made a mistake, but he swept low to my feet and caught my ankles, and I went down. My gut wrenched from the fright of being surprised, but I recovered quickly enough to roll out of the way as his heel came down. I felt his presence looming over me, balled my fist, and surged upward with all of my might. I caught him a glancing blow across the chest, but he gasped with surprise and dove to the side. “You hit me!” he proclaimed.

“Barely,” I grumbled.

“Admirable nonetheless.”

“You hit me first.”

“So then we both did well.”

I smiled. Lee would never tell me I had done poorly. He saw the bright side in everything. For him, it was enough that I was trying and showing moderate success. I loved him for that.

I lost myself to training. It was good to have finally mourned for Neji, exorcising troubled feelings and regrets with others who felt the same. And it was refreshing to have forgotten Shisui for a while, and the fire that he had started deep within. My team had been here for me first, and it was good to be reminded, once in a while, that whether or not I believed it, being loved wasn’t anything new after all.


	18. Parameters

**Shisui**

* * *

 

Naruto, the new Hokage, fidgeted in the too-large chair. It was clear that he was not a man accustomed to sitting down, or even sitting still, for long. It made me a little uncomfortable. Itachi and I stood straight backed before the massive desk, stoic as could be, awaiting whatever it was we had been summoned for, and our fearless leader apparently lacked all proper decorum. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to throttle him and shout at him to sit still, or open my mouth to crack a joke to put him at ease. In the end, I merely stood there, mildly annoyed, awaiting whatever it was he had to say.

Tsunade Senju, the fifth Hokage, stood near the window, arms crossed and staring out. She was purposely remaining separate, allowing Naruto to acclimate to his new role while still being near enough to advise—or assume responsibility entirely. I had seen her only briefly on the battlefield where Tenten had slaughtered Madara, and I liked her. Naruto… I wasn’t so sure.

So we waited while he gathered his thoughts. It was excruciating.

“So, uh… I have a mission for you guys,” he started.

 _Wait, mission? What the hell?_ “What kind of mission?” I interrupted. It was rude of me, I know, but at that point I was past being polite and I really didn’t care.

Tsunade shot me a glare as Naruto leaned over the desk to look at me. “As it turns out,” Naruto continued, “both of you guys are still on the ANBU rosters, officially. Now that you’re both back, that means you’re technically still ANBU, and we need you.” Tsunade nodded in approval.

My heart sank. I wanted nothing to do with ANBU. I was actually enjoying my lazy sunshine time, and had a million days planned that placed Tenten in my bed and involved tons of breakfasts, innumerable of pots of coffee, and a few of her children. It took everything I had to not groan aloud.

Naruto’s face grew serious. It was that same intense look I had seen on him before, back when I got the sense that messing with him was a bad idea. Most of the time, he was complete and utter goof. But, times like these, you knew not to take him too lightly. “Yeah. One of our patrols got wind of some information. There’s something happening that seems ominous.”

I felt Itachi’s ears prick beside me.

Naruto carried on as if he hadn’t noticed at all. “They’ve found some kind of ancient burial chamber. There is writing on the walls that they can’t read.”

I relaxed. It started to sound less dangerous, and it all made sense now. They needed my cryptanalysis experience. By now, it was known amongst the higher ups that I had cracked Izuna’s scroll, and since I was clearly not dead, I had become a bit of a legend among the code breaker nerds. I could see the way the scenario had played out already. “Oh, there’s some weird writing on this wall. Let’s get that new Uchiha guy on the case. I really want to see what he can do.” I wanted to strangle whoever had recommended me for this. I wanted little and less to do with missions that took me outside the Village… and away from Tenten. Peace time was for leisure, and I had had enough of war to last me a lifetime. I wanted to get old, laze around, and love Tenten with everything I had left.

“I’ll do it,” Itachi spoke up for the first time.

I wanted to strangle him in that moment. We had no idea what the parameters of this mission were yet, and he knew damned well that volunteering meant that I’d go with him. I almost hated him a little for it. “Itachi!” I hissed. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t even look at me. I might as well have not even existed. With a shock, I understood completely. All the pieces fit. Itachi had not been happy, could not be satisfied with the peace that we had made for ourselves here. He was craving malcontent and war. This mission, regardless of the dangers inherent, was the balm he was looking for. I bet he wanted it to be dangerous. There was nothing that my stalwart friend feared; he had been killed and revived, and probably didn’t mind dying again.

Naruto should have been happy by the acceptance, but he wasn’t. He was looking at me. “Shisui, right?” he asked me. I bristled; it was _him_ that had summoned _me_ here. How could he not be certain of my name? I nodded curtly and schooled my features. Naruto was a new Hokage and I was newly returned to Konoha—and apparently still on ANBU rosters. It would not be good to make an enemy of him. He smiled at me, and to his credit, it seemed genuine. “What is it that makes you hesitate?”

I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t want to tell him anything. We didn’t know each other. He seemed like a fool, sometimes. I stared.

Naruto’s face morphed into something of his true self. He placed his fists under his chin and leaned forward, leering. “It’s a girl isn’t it? Come on, you can tell me. Come on, come on!”

I ground my teeth and wanted to punch him, but that wouldn’t be right. “Yeah, it’s a girl.” I turned to Itachi and forgot Naruto was there. “What the fuck, Itachi?” I growled. The friend I had sacrificed everything for was starting to become something of a liability. Never before had I ever been aware of how much of myself I had set aside so that he might truly live. I snorted. _The Chosen One_.

He turned to regard me, his one eye swirling red. It annoyed me that he wore my face, even if the hair was slightly longer. “We are Shinobi, Shisui,” he said softly, as if that was all the explanation that was needed. His eyes told me what I needed to know. _I need this_ , he seemed to say. Itachi was hell bent on going back to war, even in a time of perfect peace.

I was pissed. I couldn’t help it. Everything was just starting to go my way, and already I was being called away from the Village to read some crusty, ashen wall in the middle of who-knows-where. I glared at him, and he seemed unperturbed. But, what could I do? Seethe I might, but I couldn’t, in good conscience, let Itachi go anywhere without me. I had made his well being my life’s mission, and I wasn’t about to give up on him now. He said that he needed this, and him staying alive was important to me still. Who knows? Maybe he would return home happy and replete, and everything would be well.

Besides… this mission didn’t look too dangerous, so far. “Fine,” I snarled. “What’s this about anyway?”

Naruto visibly relaxed. “You two and two others will go to the burial chamber, decipher the writing, and return home with a full report,” he said.

“That’s it?” I asked, incredulous. “Isn’t there anyone else?” I grumbled.

Naruto glanced at Tsunade before answering. “The chamber is deep in unfamiliar territory,” he conceded. “And you’re the only cipher-nin we have. The other code guys aren’t ninja. There’s a chance you could be intercepted by other ninja, and I don’t want to risk anyone. I know you guys are capable. Sasuke’s a member of my own team,” he said quietly. “It should be pretty easy… in and out. But, in case anything goes wrong, I know you guys can handle yourselves without trouble.”

It made sense, but I still hated it. I didn’t want to go, not for any reason… except, apparently, Itachi. I relaxed, though… somewhat. If I was to take any mission, at least I’d get a fairly easy one that involved breaking a code instead of killing some crazy, overpowered enemy. “I get it,” I sighed with resignation. “I said I’d go, didn’t I?”

“Shisui Uchiha!” Tsunade suddenly snapped.

I felt my spine stiffen at the sudden intensity of her tone. This woman was no joke, not at all. “Yes ma’am!” I responded immediately, my eyes wide with fear. I surprised myself… this was a woman born to be obeyed, and she scared me instantly. So different from the passionate, friendly woman from before.

She strode over to me and stood a couple of feet away, her face the very image of feminine fury. She reminded me of Tenten at her worst, and I automatically desired to do whatever it took to make her ferocity go away. “You are a Shinobi of the Leaf,” she began, her voice now dangerously quiet. I think it scared me more than her sharp onslaught. “When you set out to become a Shinobi, you promised this Village the extent of your skills to be used in its protection. Are you doubting yourself now? Do you mean to deny us of your talents, _now_?” She quirked an eyebrow, and I swallowed the lump of fear in my throat and shook my head. “You are the only cryptanalyst that we have that is able to defend himself in case of attack. We need you. Are you with us?”

Her amber eyes pierced into my skull, addling my wits. She had skewered me with a glance. She was actually asking a deeper, more important question: where do your loyalties lie? It was a question that I was, by now, very intimately acquainted with. And where were my loyalties, indeed? I had the answer to that.

With Tenten.

But that was an answer that a Hokage cared nothing for. “Of course I am,” I said to her. “When do we leave?”

She held my stare for minutes more, assessing the truthfulness of my statement, before sighing and returning to the window to leave it to Naruto. Naruto picked up on his cue. “Ideally, within the next twenty four hours. We’re assembling the second half of your team right now. Meet back here at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, and we’ll finalize the details.”

“Sure,” I said, my voice sounding unlike my own.

“As you wish,” Itachi assented, his voice sounding like how mine should have.

“Dismissed,” Naruto finished.

As soon as we were out of there, I grabbed his shirt and pinned Itachi against a wall. “You bastard,” I hissed into his face. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t seem at all aggravated to be caged into a wall. He merely blinked at me and didn’t answer.

“You know,” I pressed. “You _know_ I’m in a relationship, and you don’t care.”

He snorted. “Oh, is it a relationship now? Because last I heard, she didn’t give two fucks about where you were or what your feelings were.”

I stared at him, openmouthed. I decided right then and there that I had liked Itachi more when he seemed to have no feelings at all and kept his fucking mouth shut. “I could let you go by yourself. Maybe you’ll do us both a favor and get yourself killed.”

He didn’t even have the grace to look like he felt hurt, which only made me feel like more of an asshole. He just stared impassively. “Dammit, Itachi!” I whispered, my voice broken. “Why can’t you just be happy with the way things are?” I shoved him hard against the wall to accentuate my point, then released him.

He looked away. “You wouldn’t understand.”

I stalked away. “No, I wouldn’t. I can’t understand how a man who has been given a stolen life back can be such a mopey, toothless little lion,” I said coldly. And then, because I almost felt bad, I added, “I’ll go with you, Itachi, but this is the last time. I don’t need you anymore, and you don’t need me. You never did.” I took a deep breath, and then released it. “When we get back from this, you’re going to get over whatever lame emotion you’re feeling right now and live like normal people live. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and make something of what you’ve got. I have something to live for now. So should you.”

I turned my single Sharingan eye on him. I knew I looked pathetic. I didn’t care. “I love you, Itachi. I hope you find what you’re looking for. And I hope it’s worth losing my friendship over.”

Satisfied that I had hurt him deeply enough, even if he refused to show it, I stalked away.


	19. The Scent of Home

**Tenten**

* * *

 

“I know Neji used to walk you home, Tenten,” Lee said to me. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to do that for you from now on.” His bow was perfect, as it always was; it was exactly the proper angle, eyes fixed upon the ground in front of my feet. He had always been so polite.

I considered his request as he waited patiently. Yes, Neji had always walked me home before, but it was because I had asked so that I might get closer to him. Lee’s request now seemed ill-timed, and I wondered suspiciously if he might be trying to get close to me. But, as I thought about it, I knew that I was wrong on that account. Lee had always been obsessed with Sakura—though I’d never fathom why. Sakura had a bipolar personality, sweet and compassionate one moment and wickedly vicious the next. Also, I had to admit that the color pink was generally unattractive, especially as a hair color. No, I did not believe that Lee’s request had anything to do with winning my affections.

If anything, it was probable that, with Neji’s absence, he was simply trying to fill the void for me. Perhaps for himself, as well. We had always been a small family, and now we seemed far smaller without Neji around. I had had two teammates, and now I only had one. With Neji gone, I found myself feeling a lot more grateful that Lee was one of my teammates. He wasn’t creepy like Shino, obnoxious like Naruto, lazy like that ass Shikamaru, an arrogant bastard like Sasuke (or Neji, for that matter), a complete weirdo like Sai, or as utterly useless as Kiba. Lee was hardworking, polite, considerate, and strong. With Neji gone, there was no one in the world I’d rather have at my back, and that included Shisui. I was certain that Shisui Uchiha was a formidable opponent—and I was definitely glad he was on our side instead of an enemy—but Lee and I had been working together for years. We had a certain teammate chemistry that made fighting together feel as natural as breathing.

“I’d love that. Thanks, Lee.” He smiled briefly, the only indication that he was pleased. Without Guy nearby, he wasn’t likely to go all ‘Handsome Devil’ on me. His posturing was definitely an echo of Guy. He stood and offered his arm like a gentleman, but that might have been a little too much for me. “Can’t we just walk like normal people?” I asked with a grimace.

“Of course,” he agreed. We started walking, and I’m not ashamed to admit that he was pleasant company and I was glad he had offered. I quickly realized that the walk home reminded me too much of Neji, and it still stung that he had died so soon after he’d finally seen me as a woman instead of just his teammate. The potential of what might-have-been might bother me for the rest of my life. With a secret smile, though, I realized that his place was being filled in as best as the people around me knew how. Shisui had become my lover—a new and exciting chapter in the Book of Tenten worth rereading—and Lee was doing his best to be enough teammate for two.

We didn’t talk much on the walk back. I knew that both of us were probably thinking about Neji, for our different reasons. I knew, now, that Lee knew that Neji and I had some sort of thing going on, even if he didn’t know the full extent. For Lee, Neji had been his rival and his obstacle, the friend who’d never admit that they were friends. Without Neji to pace himself by, Lee was on his own. It was as if the goal had vanished, but somewhere out there was still a finish line, one he wouldn’t even know was there until it was crossed.

“Do you think we’ll end up getting a new teammate?” Lee asked me suddenly. His eyes were fixed ahead at some arbitrary point on the ground.

I thought about it. Neither of us were officially jounin yet. It was possible that we would get a new teammate, as Team Seven had acquired Sai, but I doubted it. Who _was_ there, anyway? Some upstart new genin? I snorted inwardly. Not likely. We were older than the famous rookie nine. They’d surely not slap us with a brat little more than half our age. “I doubt it,” I replied honestly. “We’re not looking at war times right now. A lot of the teams are probably on holiday. They probably won’t even need us.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” he said slowly. “I don’t think I’d like it if we were just taken off the rosters. I still have so far to go.” His fists clenched at his sides. To Rock Lee, there was no word so garish as ‘holiday.’

“I wouldn’t worry about it right now, Lee. Even if we got a new teammate, I doubt it would happen right away. Who knows? Maybe if and when it happens, we’ll be happy for it. And maybe our new teammate will be just as awesome as Neji.” The lie tasted sour on my tongue. That realization was almost as bitter as the taste. I had always been so good at lying that it had come easily and never bothered me. Apparently, I had changed a little, too.

“Yeah,” he muttered dejectedly. “You’re probably right.” He was lying to himself, trying to believe in it, but he had never been a good liar. He didn’t convince me nor himself. “Huh?” he said suddenly, halting. “Tenten, where are we?”

I glanced up from the ground and nearly kicked myself at what I saw. We weren’t anywhere near where I usually called home—which, in hindsight, was probably a good thing, since Lee did not yet know I didn’t _have_ a home. Instead, we were standing just outside Shisui’s house. The windows were dark, indicating that he wasn’t home, but there it was. It stood serenely, just the way I had left it (minus the Shisui). I found it strange that Lee would remark on how strange it was that we were here, since he didn’t know where I lived, but then I realized why. We were obviously within the border of the Uchiha compound, and I certainly did not belong _there_. “Right,” I said, the word drawn out long. “This is Shisui’s house.”

He glanced at me uncertainly, his comical eyebrow raised in wait.

I sighed. I’d have to tell him sooner or later. Knowing Lee and how he strove to protect his team, he’d want to make sure I was all right. Besides, he and Guy had been there when I’d accidentally killed Madara, so they’d seen Shisui’s brazen advances. “You know…” I dragged out, suddenly shy. “That guy from the battlefield, the one we were talking about earlier today?”

“Shisui?” he offered helpfully.

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “So we’re kind of like… a thing now?” It came out sounding like a question. I wasn’t really sure how else to say it though, really.

“Earlier you mentioned that you two were friends,” he stated, confused.

“Kind of lied?” I helped with a shrug. “Sorry… Guy-sensei gets a little weird about romance.”

He nodded in understanding. “So this must be his house then?” he asked, reverting his gaze back to the small dwelling. I wondered what he was thinking.

“Yeah,” I repeated. “Not sure how I ended up here, but that’s okay. I can just stay here tonight, I suppose. I stayed here last night, after all.”

To my surprise, he didn’t seem too bothered by that idea. “Okay, Tenten,” he said cheerfully. He gave me a swift, short bow, then nonchalantly made to leave.

That made me feel rather miffed, actually, that he’d just leave me at a stranger’s house alone and unprotected. “That’s it?” I asked incredulously, feeling my anger rise.

He looked over his shoulder at me. “Huh?”

“You’re just going to let me stay here, at some random guy’s house, alone?”

He looked genuinely confused. “Tenten, your feet carried you here independently of your will—and your will is impressive—so you obviously wanted to be here. You must like him a lot.  I trust your judgment. Don’t you?”

My mouth fell open in astonishment. It was such a brilliantly worded thing to say, and it struck me deeply. Trust, pure and undiluted, seen by the eyes of my teammate. I smiled, feeling the truth of it sink into my bones. “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Lee.”

“Goodnight, Tenten,” he said with a smile.

“Goodnight, Lee.”

I pushed open the front door and inhaled the spicy scent of the inside of Shisui’s house. It smelled like him and the clean wooden boards from which it had been made. There was a lingering scent of bacon, but the coffee scent had long dissipated. And yes, there it was… the memory of the scent of the things we’d done on his futon.

I couldn’t help the feeling that it smelled like a home should smell. My home. It was fresh, yet musky, and smelled of him and of me. It smelled like a home that normal people lived in, where a man and a woman made love and ate breakfast and bitched about their lives over coffee. In the shadows of the interior I saw us living here, together. It caused my heart to migrate to my throat.

Never before had I had… domestic dreams. Every girl goes through the phase in her life where she starts to realize that men are made differently than women. Every girl begins to dream of sex and all of the wild things that people can do together when they take their clothes off. And then, eventually, every girl dreams of setting aside the urge to fuck at every given opportunity, instead finding a man worth spending more than a few hours with, to settle into a boring little house and raise a couple of kids exactly like themselves.

But, every girl was not me. I had never wanted to find a permanent man, nor settle down, nor ever have any kids. Men were traps of trust and danger, both at once. The sex I could have if I wanted, but the husband I refused to believe was possible. And yet, here I was… inhaling the fragrance of this morning’s breakfast and dreaming up a million more just like it. I already knew I’d be here tomorrow, just as I was here today, just as I was here yesterday. The questions had faded to nothing, and the fears seemed like a distant memory already. He was safe, and he loved me.

He _loved_ me. He hadn’t said it, but I saw the truth of it in his borrowed eye. He had wanted to say it, and was doing his best to show me without voicing it aloud, probably because he knew it would freak me out and suspected that I might run. And he’d probably have been right. I still wasn’t sure how I’d react if he said it right now, but as long as the words remained unsaid, I was content. I knew how he felt, and that wasn’t the part that made me nervous. Being near him, feeling his warmth and the softness of his skin, breathing in the scent that lingered upon his skin, and waiting for that next impish joke to tumble off of those sinful lips… all of these things made me utterly comfortable.

“Honey, I’m home!” I called humorously to the empty house. It felt good to say. I wondered if it would feel that good every time?

With a song in my soul, I traipsed through the house as if I owned the place and found my way to his room. Odd… the only place we hadn’t done naughty, luscious things was here in his bed. I felt the grin tugging at my lips as I thought… maybe we ought to change that? I fell backward upon the mattress—not too soft… not too firm—and reveled at actually laying upon one. I’d never owned a real mattress. How much more alive would I feel if I got a proper night’s rest every day? 

That was the last complete thought I had. For some strange reason, all the activity in my brain stilled. I was so comfortable here, and so tired. There was no reason to continue buzzing on about this and that when the promise of pleasant dreaming existed in this room. I lavished in the feeling of my mind going completely blank, for once not troubled by my past or my present, or even worried about the future. All that mattered was that I was comfortable and tired, and the mattress pressed into my back smelled more like Shisui than anything else in this whole damned house.

Unconsciously aware of what I was even doing, my body twisted into his blanket, wrapping it around myself. “Mmm…” I groaned aloud.

Yep. This was the life.


	20. Tiger Became a Tabby

**Shisui**

* * *

 

Still fuming, I slammed the door shut. My house was dark, just like my mood. Briefly I considered just throwing all of my shit around the house. It might make me feel better. It was never a good idea to hold in so much rage without an outlet. What I usually did when I was pissed off was spar with Itachi for a while, but since he was the reason I was pissed off, I was left without release. Instead, I did everything as violently as I could, starting with slamming the door. When the noise from that dissipated, I ripped my shirt off and flung it across the room. Due to its flapping nature, it caught wind resistance and failed to be as satisfying as I had hoped. I kicked off my sandals with a silent snarl and used my toes to fling them. Now, _that_ was satisfying. One of my shoes flew across the kitchen counter and knocked a dish over. It hit the tile floor with a fulfilling crash of porcelain.

I smiled, but there was no happiness in it. With a sorrowful sigh, I crossed the floor toward my bedroom. Just when everything was going so well, I’d be leaving Konoha again. A host of what-ifs went off like sirens in my skull. What if the mission ended up being a dangerous one after all, and I was killed? I’d never see Tenten again, and I’d never be able to prove to her that she could be happy. I’d never get to figure out who it was that I was meant to be.

Sighing again, I chose not to turn the light on in my room and merely sat on the edge of my bed. That was when I realized that something felt different about it. I could almost sense a presence in my room, and I could definitely hear someone breathing. Without thinking, I drew a kunai and kept it close, activating the Sharingan and scanning the room.

When I realized who it was, though, I nearly laughed aloud, and I did sigh with relief. It was Tenten. Sleeping. In my bed. Just seeing her there made my heart flutter. I put the knife away in its holster. I discarded my pants and carefully stretched out next to her. I felt myself unwind and marveled at the feeling. Only moments ago I was furious and wanting to hurt things, and now I felt calm and completely content. I felt the strong desire to hold her tight, sniff her hair, and never let her go.

And, well, why not? So I snuggled close, over the blanket that she was wrapped up in, and I ran my fingers over the sinuous curve of her body silhouetted against the light from the single window. I tucked my head into the hollow between her neck and her shoulder and breathed in her delicious scent. It was, of course, the same as usual: clean yet smoky with the musk of heavy training. “What a pleasant surprise,” I murmured into her ear.

At first, she didn’t stir. Then, as my presence registered in her unconscious mind, she moved ever so slightly in her sleep. “Hmm?” She turned her head into my face, and I nuzzled my spot in her neck. “Shisui?”

“The one and only,” I affirmed.

“What are you doing here?” she asked sleepily, taking a deep waking breath and shifting in my sheets.

I chuckled. “Well, I do live here, you know, though you could have fooled me.”

Her eyelids flew open, realization dawning. “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed, trying to escape the covers. “I didn’t mean to… I was so tired and… I’m just—“

“Tenten!” I stopped her, thoroughly amused. She stopped moving and looked at me, mortified that she had somehow fallen asleep in my bed without my permission. “It’s okay. You can stay here as long as you like, whether I’m here or not. “

She deflated, snuggling deeply into my pillow. “Oh.” The sound was so muffled that I wanted to laugh again. I could get used to this.

But then I remembered the rest of the events of the day. And with that memory came the bitter remembrance that I would not get to see her wake in my bed but maybe one more time before I’d have to leave her behind. “Tenten… we need to talk,” I said unhappily.

Too late I realized the mistake. My tone was too negative; she stiffened in my grasp and stopped breathing. “About what?” she asked, her voice laced with suspicion.

“Don’t worry,” I reassured her, trying to correct it. “It has nothing to do with you and me. Well, kind of… but not anything going on between us. It’s more me than you, really, and—“

“Spit it out, Shisui,” she barked. “If you want to end this, rip it off like a bandage. Let’s not draw out the pain.”

Her voice was so bitter that it broke my heart. I almost lost my resolve to even tell her, but my better judgment saved me. If I didn’t, the situation would most certainly be worse. “I’m being sent off on a mission,” I told her dreadfully.

She relaxed. “Oh, is that all?” She almost sounded more irritated now. And she probably was, since she clearly saw it as less of a big deal than I did. “Don’t make it sound like someone died, then.”

Now it was my turn to be irritated. Did she not see the problem with this? “I don’t want to go,” I growled.

She turned over in my arms, fully awake now, and fixed me with those iron gray eyes. “Do you know how whiny you sound?” she admonished, eyes narrowing.

I flinched. I did sound whiny, didn’t I? I think, deep down, I had known all along that I was being petulant and childish, but that I just didn’t care. I’d taken a hit of a potent drug, and my actions were not wholly my own. “I… well, no…” I frowned at how pathetic I sounded. She quirked a knowing eyebrow and stared at me. I scrubbed a hand through my hair and looked away. Pouted, even. I gave up. “And so what if I do? Haven’t I done enough for this damned village?”

She raised herself up to her elbows and looked at me. With her headband in place and the firm glare that would rival Tsunade’s she might as well have been my commanding officer. “Shisui,” she began in a lecturing tone, “we’re Shinobi.” Just like Itachi, she acted as if that were all the explanation that were needed.

“Not you too,” I grumbled.

“Hm?”

My frown deepened. “Itachi said the exact same thing.”

She smirked. “Then he’s smarter than I gave him credit for. Look, Shisui…” She tapped her headband. “From the moment you put this on, your life is not your own. Your existence becomes a series of stolen moments that should be seen as a bonus, not a privilege. We’re not conscripts in an army. We don’t serve out the terms of a contract and then live happily ever after. Being a Shinobi is a lifetime commitment to protect this Village and the people in it. Sometimes that means lame missions just to make some money for the Village economy. Sometimes that means marching off to almost certain death.” Her voice lowered and gentled. “And sometimes that means there are brief periods in between where we can try to pretend we’re just ordinary civilians and that evil doesn’t even exist.” She finished and waited for my response.

Her words had humbled me. Worse was that I had stopped crediting Itachi’s words, as if our whole friendship had never mattered in the first place. I knew that meant I would need to apologize, too, and that was never fun. “Fine,” I relented. “I get it. I’ll take the damned mission.” I released her and turned over, away from that satisfied smirk. I knew she was right, but that didn’t mean that I had to be happy about it. Not in the slightest.

I heard the twinge of amusement in her voice when she asked, “Are you at least going to tell me what kind of mission?" 

My cheekiness returned en force. “Can’t,” I replied flippantly. “ANBU business. Top secret and all that jazz.”

“Is that code for ‘I have no idea so I’ll pretend it’s badass?’” she countered.

I grinned, glad she couldn’t see it. “No, it’s code for ‘it’s totally badass,’” I corrected.

“You’re a terrible liar,” she murmured wryly. “And I can hear your shit-eating smile.” She laughed as my eye widened.

So she had been practicing? No way does one simply ‘hear’ a smile unless they’re attuned. “Been working hard, I take it?” I asked her, turning my head just enough to see the twinkle of merriment in her eyes.

“Not really,” she mocked. “Maybe you’re just an easy target.”

I was prepared to throw her words back at her, and came up with a snap plan. So I turned my head away again and said nothing. The moment stretched. I felt her shift uncomfortably near me, unsure what was going on or if something she had said had unwittingly hurt me. “Shisui?” she asked, uncertain, laying a hand upon my shoulder. She raised her body up further, leaning over me. “Did I say something?”

I waited another moment, just enough to wrap her up in worry, and then I rolled over, trapping her beneath my body and pinning both of her wrists. She hit the mattress with an oomph and wide eyes. I smiled in triumph. “Maybe _you’re_ just an easy target,” I retorted.

In the past, she might have struggled or screeched, hating being pinned or trapped and aching to be free. Today she blinked up at me, her face expressionless… and then burst out laughing. The motion exposed her vulnerable throat, and I fell upon it, kissing the source of her sharp-tongued words. This, too, I loved. “Careful,” I whispered against her skin. “I’m beginning to think you might like being trapped after all.”

She stilled, growing serious. “I prefer to think of it more as being… domesticated,” she said carefully. “And if you are my captor, I think my cage is pretty comfortable. Be forewarned, though, that if you abuse me in any way, I’m likely to be that beast that kills you in your sleep.”

I smiled at her tone. So nonchalant, to speak of dishonorable killing as a means of retribution. _Blood and sweat… my warrior woman. My tigress._ “I wouldn’t have it any other way, you know,” I told her, catching her gaze. She blinked up at me, searching my face for the truth. “I love your fierceness, and your independence. If ever you feel a need to kill me, I am sure I will deserve it.”

She blushed under the scrutiny of my stare, looked away, and changed tack. She squirmed a little in my grasp, and I felt my body leap at the response. Ah, so that was her game. When her eyes snapped back to mine, all of her fire was back, and that stare was a challenge. “Think you can hold me down?” she asked me wickedly. “Dare you to try.”

I bit my lip to keep from making inarticulate, ugly sounds. “Very well, then. I accept your challenge.”

As I loved her, I truly hoped it wouldn’t be the last time. I treated her like it might be, though. After all… general badassery didn’t protect you from the death of an idiot. Madara Uchiha could attest to that.

Of course, he would need his head to speak such things, so that might prove challenging.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAaaaaand...
> 
> that's THE END.
> 
> There are an indefinite number of subsequent installments to this one, but for the time being it's on hold. A friend and I are working on a collab, and then here and I are going to spend some time on originals for a bit. NaNoWriMo is coming up... I need to test myself. :D
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'll come back to this, I promise, so just try to be patient with me. ^_^
> 
> If you like my work, please hit the subscribe button to receive notifications when I update. Love you!


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